May I offer this from (forgive me) a CD we've just put out? (!) The first note is from our sleeve notes... see www.skywriter.demon.co.uk for more details.

"The Old Family Bible – We were convinced that this fifty-year-old country song was by the great Willie Nelson, until the day after we gave it this bluegrass arrangement, when we discovered three other possible composers! The lyrics are pure backwoods country, with a 'family' theme that will please several modern-day traditionalists."

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THE OLD FAMILY BIBLE (unknown)

There's an old family Bible on the table, its pages torn and hard to read,
But that family Bible on the table will ever be my key to memory.

At the end of day when work was over, and when the evening meal was done,
Dad would read to us from that family Bible, and we'd count our many blessings one by one.

I can see us sitting round the table, as from that family Bible Dad would read.
I can hear my mother softly singing, “rock of ages, rock of ages cleft for me.”

This old world of ours is full of trouble. This old world would oh, so better be,
If we had more Bibles on the table, more mothers singing “rock of ages, cleft for me.”

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Let me know if you want the chords.

- Ian B

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 1-Mar-02.