Bill Anderson
Bill Anderson - Ol' Doc Brown lyrics
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He was just and old country doctor In a small Georgia town Fame and fortune had passed him by But we never saw him frown. As day by day in his kindly way He served us one and all Many a patient forgot to pay Although Doc's fees were small. But ol' Doc Brown didn't seem to mind In fact he didn't even send out bills His only ambition it seemed was to find Sure cures for aches and ills. Why nearly half the folks In our home town And yes, I'm one of them too Were ushered in by ol' Doc Brown. When we made our first debaut ah, he needed his dimes And there were times he'd receive a fee But he would pass it on to some poor soul That he said needed it worse than he. So when hard times hit our town And drained each meager purse The scanty income of Ol' Doc Brown Just went from bad to worse. He had to sell his furniture Why he couldn't even pay his office rent And so to an old dusty room over a liberty stable Ol' Doc Brown and his satchel went. On the hitching post at the curb below To advertise his wares He nailed up a little sign that read "Doc Brown has moved up stairs." And there he kept on helping people get well And his heart was pure gold But anyone with eyes could see That Doc was getting old. Then one day he didn't even answer When they knocked upon his door Ol' Doc Brown was lying down But his life was no more. They found him there in his old black suit But on his face was a smile of contentment But all the money they could find on him Was a quarter and one ol' copper cent. So they opened up his ledger And what they saw gave their hearts a pull 'Cause beside each debtor's name Ol' Doc had written "Paid in full." Well, it looked like the potter's field for Doc And that caused us some alarm 'Till some one remembered the family graveyard Out on the Simmon's farm. Ol' Doc had brought six of their kids into this world And Simmons was a grateful cuss He said "Doc been like one of the family So he can sleep with us." Ol' Doc Brown should have had a funeral fine Enough for a king It's a ghastly joke that our town was broke And no one could give a thing. Except Jones the undertaker He did mighty well He donated an old iron casket He'd never been able to sell. And the funeral procession Well, it wasn't much for grace and pomp and style But those wagonloads of mourners They stretched out for more than a mile. And we breathed a prayer As we laid him there to rest beneath the sod This man who had earned the right To be on speaking terms with God. His grave was covered with flowers But not from the floral shop Just roses and things from folks gardens And one or two dandelion tops. For time had hit our town hard And each man carried a load So some just picked the wild flowers As they passed along the road. We wanted to give Doc a monument We kind of figured we owed him one 'Cause he had made our town a better place For all the good he had done. But monuments cost money So we just did the best we could And on his grave we just placed A monument of wood. We pulled up that old hitching post Where Doc had nailed his sign We painted it white and to all of us It surely did look fine. Now the rains and snow has washed away Our white trimmings of paint And there ain't nothing left but Doc's old sign And even that's getting faint. And still when southern breezes And twinkling stars cross our little town And pail moonlight shines through Georgia pines On the grave of Ol' Doc Brown. You can still see that old hitching post As if in answer to our prayers Proudly telling the whole wide world Doc Brown has moved up stairs...