The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4213   Message #2850338
Posted By: GUEST,DonMeixner
25-Feb-10 - 07:37 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Old Rivers (Walter Brennan recording)
Subject: Lyr Add: OLD RIVERS (from Walter Brennan)
I have never seen the dots for this but here are the words. I'd play the melody line to Life Gets Teejus Don't it? Which seems close enough.

Don

How old was I when I first seen old Rivers?
I can't remember when he weren't around
Well, that old fellow did a heap of work
Spent his whole life walking plowed ground.

He had a one-room shack not far from us
And well, we was about as poor as him
He had one old mule he called Midnight
And I'd trailed along after them.

He used to plow them rows straight and deep
And I'd come along near behind
A-bustin' up clods with my own bare feet
Old Rivers was a friend of mine.

That sun'd get high and that mule would work
Till old Rivers'd say, "Whoa!"
He'd wipe his brow, lean back on the reins
And talk about a place he was gonna go.

Chorus:
He'd say, one of these days
I'm gonna climb that mountain
Walk up there among the clouds
Where the cotton's high
And the corn's a-growin'
And there ain't no fields to plow.

I got a letter today from the folks back home and
They're all fine and crops is dry
Down at the end my mama said,

"Son, You know old Rivers died."

Just sittin' here now on this new-plowed earth
Trying to find me a little shade
With the sun beating down 'cross the field I see
That mule, old Rivers and me.

Chorus:
Now, one of these days
I'm gonna climb that mountain
Walk up there among the clouds
Where the cotton's high
And the corn's a-growin'
And there ain't no fields to plow.

With the sun beating down 'cross the field I see
That mule, old Rivers and me...