Lyr Req: Kern River (Merle Haggard)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Don't Go Swimming in Kern River
From: MartinRyan
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 06:06 PM

How old is the song?

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Don't Go Swimming in Kern River
From: Amos
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 05:56 PM

Below Bakersfield there's a diversionary dam, I have read, and I think at that point it is no longer a river except in flood emergencies...

but I am guessing here.


A

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Don't Go Swimming in Kern River
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 05:50 PM

Yeah, I suppose you could say it's a canyon at Bakersfield, but it has gradual slopes and the river is a mere trickle there. It sure is wicked when the river is at flood stage, though. The river divides the reasonably-civilized city of Bakersfield from Oildale, a rough-and-tumble place where the oil workers would get drunk and get arrested. I wonder if that's the part of the river he's talking about, the place where it divides the rich from the poor.
Oh, last time I was in Oildale was maybe ten years ago. Buck Owens still had his recording studio in an old movie house there.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: ADDPOP: Kern River
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 05:48 PM

Aw, it was too easy. I should have checked Cowpie first.
-Joe Offer-


Kern River
Merle Haggard

  CHORUS:
  
       D                      A
  I'll never swim Kern River again.
  A
  It was there that I met her.
  A                                E      E7
  It was there that I lost my best friend.
            D
  And now I live in the mountains.
    C#m                      D
  I drifted up here with the wind.
            A
  And I may drown in still water,
           E                      A
  But I'll never swim Kern River again.
  
  
  VERSE
         A
  I grew up in an oil town,
         D                 A
  But my gusher never came in.
             A
  And the river was a boundary
  A                               E    (E7) E9
  Where my  darlin' and I used to swim.
  
  
  A
  One night in the moonlight
  D                              A
  The swiftness swept her life away.
  A
  And now I live on Lake Shasta and
  A    E                      A
  Lake Shasta is where I will stay.
  
  
  CHORUS
  
  A
  There's  the South San Joaquin,
            D                          A
  Where the seeds of the dust bowl are found.
  A
  And there's a place called Mount Whitney
  A                                      E   (E7) E9
  From where the mighty Kern River comes down.
             A
  Well, it's not  deep nor wide,
  A          D                      A
  But it's a mean piece of water my friend.
  A
  And I may pass on the highway,
           E                     A
  But I'll never swim Kern River again
  
  
  CHORUS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Don't Go Swimming in Kern River
From: Amos
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 05:47 PM

Some photos of the Kern.

Still looking. It goes down through a canyon into the Kern River Valley and past Bakersfield still in a sort of canyon.

A

Subject: Lyr Req: Don't Go Swimming in Kern River
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Feb 05 - 05:42 PM

In the Haunted Falls/Haunted Wood thread, Michael Morris used the phrase, "Don't go swimming in the Kern River." Seems to me there's a song about that, with that either as the title or as a pertinent phrase. I searched Mudcat and Google, but couldn't find it. Anybody know of the song and its lyrics, or am I all wet?
I think maybe it was written by Jim Ringer or Buck Owens or Marle Haggard, but that's a wild guess.

The Kern River is a wild and beautiful river that runs from Lake Isabella in the southern Sierra Nevada, through a narrow canyon to the southern part of the Central Valley of California. It's a slow, meandering stream by the time it hits Bakersfield, and then I don't know where it goes.

As you drive up the highway into Kern river Canyon, there's a huge sign that warns you how many people have died in that river. It's beautiful, but deadly. And if the water doesn't get you, the rattlesnakes may.

So, anybody know the song?

-Joe Offer-