California Cotton Fields

Merle Haggard

My driftin' memory goes back to the spring of '43,
When I was just a child in momma's arms.
My daddy plowed the ground and promised someday we would leave
This run-down mortgaged Oklahoma farm.
Then one night I heard my daddy sayin' to my momma
That he'd finally saved enough to go.
California was his dream, a paradise, for he had seen
Pictures in magazines that told him so.

California cotton fields,
Where labor camps were filled with weary men with broken dreams.
California cotton fields,
As close to wealth as daddy ever came.

Nearly everything we had was sold or left behind,
From my daddy's plow to the soup that momma canned.
Some folks came to say farewell or see what all we had to sell