The By-Pass (Joey Davis, Major Recording Company, Waynesboro, VA)

The highway bypassed their town.
Everyone was putting everyone down.
They blamed everyone else, 'cause they wouldn't blame themselves.
Said they wouldn't stay here very long,
But you don't know what you've got until it's gone.

The stores weren't large but they fed the people around,
And we even had a movie hall on the other side of town.
People they would come, sometimes from far away,
And on the billboard outside it read, "The Longest Day."

The men on the night shift left to go to work,
But some wouldn't make it for the rocks and sliding earth.
Their families lay down for a night of peaceful sleep,
Not knowing before the dawn, they'd drown in the muddy deep.

And then that night the rains came down,
The loud clap of thunder and a roaring screaming sound.
Children cried for mother, and mother prayed to God,
A lot of Nelson loved ones lay beneath their sod.

The highway that took the business from their lives
beaming a light in the night.
When the planes came down to save their town
The highway was the only spot was saved of the crumpled ground.

Now the night of a disaster is like a terrible dream,
But we respect the highway in the highest esteem.
We won't forget that night and the misery we have known,
We're gonna build the town back, it won't take very long.
You don't know what you've got until it's gone.