Lyr Req: The East Colorado Dam (Sammy Walker)

Subject: Lyr Add: THE EAST COLORADO DAM (Sammy Walker)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 11:50 PM

My transcription from a recording at Spotify. This song appeared in Broadside Magazine, Issue 132, July/Sept 1976, page 12. You can download that issue as a PDF by clicking here.


THE EAST COLORADO DAM
As sung by Sammy Walker on "Sammy Walker" (1976, reissued 2009)

1. This shack is fallin' in and your wrists are gettin' thin.
Sweetheart, you don't deserve the kind of life I put you in,
But it's hard to draw a pay when my papers always say
That I took a loaf of bread from the grocery store one day.
For my time behind bars you have to wear the scars,
When people down the road can drive ten*-thousand-dollar cars.

CHORUS: So it's a long, long hard way to the East Colorado Dam.
If I make it to St Louis, I'll send you a telegram.
If I don't make it at all, you'll know why I didn't call.
Just kiss the baby for me and come see my grave next fall.

2. The weather's gettin' warmer and the baby's comin' soon.
I'll try to find some work that might carry us through to June,
But ev'rywhere's the same when you're a man without a name.
They'll make you feel so useless and then wonder why you came.
If a soul-searchin' beggar is what I's meant to be,
I'd rather rot behind the walls of your penitentiary. CHORUS

3. You say you love me now like you always did before,
And I love you just as well but I just can't keep you down no more.
So I'll be a-leavin' in the mornin' if the weather's bad or good,
And let you find a man who'll give you all the things I never could.
But I'll never understand as long as I live
How we can talk of "love thy neighbor" yet we can never forgive. CHORUS


[I can't locate any actual dam called the East Colorado Dam.]

[* The Broadside lyrics say five-thousand-dollar cars.]

Subject: Lyrics to East Colorado Dam
From:
Date: 28 Mar 99 - 04:56 PM

I would really like the lyrics to"East Colorado Dam" by Sammy Walker and I would like to know how to get it on tape or CD.