Farmer's Blues

I once was a farmer

and I worked on the land

sunup to sundown

But you live by the plow

and you die by the same

The story it's often been told

Well the workin' was hard

but the living was good

and your time was your own

But how can a man

make his life on the land

When the bankers and the railroads own it all?

Soon the good life was gone

Summer's drought and winter's toll

till we were forced to leave

I rode the rails

for nigh on a year

Then we settled in a dreary factory town

It's ten cents an hour

and it's ten hours a day

and you'll never be free

From the doubts and the fears

and the life we're livin' here

with my family so far from their home

I once was a farmer

and I worked on the land

sunup to sundown

But you live by the plow

and you die by the same

The story it's often been told