Merle Haggard - California Cottonfields Lyrics

(Dallas Frazier - Earl Montgomery)

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.

Yeah, then one night I heard my daddy sayin' to my mama
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 Cottonfields
Where labor camps were filled with weary men with broken dreams
California Cottonfields
As close to wealth as daddy ever came.

--- Instrumental ---

Almost everything we had to sow we left behind
From my daddy's plows and the fruit that mama canned
Some folks came to say farewell and see what all we had to sell
Some just came to shake my daddy's hand.

Yeah, the Model A was loaded down and California bound
And a change of luck was just four days away
But the only change that I remember seeing for my daddy
Was when his dark hair had turned to silver gray.

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