The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #105200   Message #2165040
Posted By: Simon G
06-Oct-07 - 08:19 AM
Thread Name: songs on emigration
Subject: RE: songs on emigration
Tim O'Brien's CD The Crossing. My favourite is A Mountaineer Is Always Free. Lost Little Children is great, but I'm never sure I want to imagine what happened to them after the song.

A Mountaineer Is Always Free
©1998 Pierce Pettis and Tim O’Brien

I'’m one of the few, proud to be standing
I walked up the pier from the coffin ships landing
My clothes were just rags, no use in this weather
But my back was strong, my hands tough as leather

I climbed up these hills till I came to the spot where I stand
I cleared these fields and I pulled up the stumps with my hands
No more a wanderer, no more a refugee
A mountaineer is always free

Took a Cherokee bride, she gave me five babies
I sang at the wakes, I cried at the weddings
I taught all my children the songs of my youth
To dance to the fiddle and practice the truth

I carried them up on my shoulders to where they could see
The whole world before them just so they would know what it means
No more a wanderer, no more a refugee
A mountaineer is always free

No kings and no landlords to treat us like beggars and thieves
There’s no one but God here to fear or to look down on me
No more a wanderer, no more a refugee
A mountaineer is always free