Lyr Add: Long Dusty Road (Terry Morrison)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Long Dusty Road (Terry Morrison)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 06:23 PM

I had never heard of Caranaga but—

Wikipedia has an article about it; it is a large family with many species, native to Asia and eastern Europe. Most species don't even have separate articles about them at Wikipedia, with one exception: Caragana arborescens, or Siberian pea-tree, which is considered an invasive species in some areas. According to this map it is found throughout most of Canada.

So it sounds plausible that you have identified it correctly.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Long Dusty Road (Morrison)
From: Stewie
Date: 24 Feb 16 - 10:08 PM

After a google search, I think I might have nailed it: 'caraganas'. Can someone confirm that that is correct.

--Stewie.

Subject: Lyr Add: LONG DUSTY ROAD (Terry Morrison)
From: Stewie
Date: 24 Feb 16 - 09:15 PM

Here is my transcription of Terry Morrison's song. I am missing a word in the second stanza. It is obviously a tree of some sort - it sounds like cara + something. I hope some Canadian 'catter can fill in the blank. Any other corrections also welcomed.


LONG DUSTY ROAD
(Terry Morrison)

I've been walkin' down this road, this long and dusty road.
I can feel the heat burnin' through the leather of my soles.
The crops are brown and thirsty and the well it's gone dry,
And there's not a drop of moisture in an endless, cloudless sky.

Somewhere off and to my right I hear a meadowlark's sweet song,
And the ditches have been all dried up for I don't know how long,
And the wind just keeps on blowin'; it's taken half the soil away,
And the sun just keeps on shinin' while the ? sway.

Chorus:
Rock me gently, my sweet mother; let me hear the night birds sing
In the twilight of the prairies; is this the ending of a dream?
This was my father's land before me, and his father's before him.
Now the hopes I had for stayin' here are gettin' mighty slim.

I took a job with Buddy drivin' truck, tryin' to make things pay,
And the wife works at the IGA three times a week half days,
And the surface rights on this here land the tax man takes away,
And it's comin' on three seasons now we've not had any rain.

Chorus

Now the stock out in the field, their eyes are full of flies,
And where once there was a waterhole, the mud is cracked and dry,
And the sun it beats me to the ground; the sweat pours off my brow.
I am tryin' to keep on going here; I'm just runnin' out of how.

Chorus [X2]

Rock me gently my sweet mother

Source: transcription from Various Artists 'Alberta: Wild Roses Northern Lights' Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40538.

--Stewie.