My driftin' mem'ry goes back to the spring of '43
When I was just a child in mama's arms
My daddy plowed the ground and prayed that some day we could leave
This run down mortaged Oklahoma farm.

Then one night I heard my daddy sayin' to my mama
That he finally saved enough for us to go
California was his dream a paradise wall he had seen
Pictures in magazines that told him so.

California cottonfields
Where labor camps were full of worried, men with broken dreams
California cottonfields
Was as close to wealth as daddy ever came.


Almost everything we had was sowed or left behind
From daddy's plow and the fruit that mama canned
Some folks came to say farewell and see what all we had to sell
But some just came to shake my daddy's hand.

The Model A was loaded down and California bound
And a change of luck was just four days away
But the only change that I remember seeing for my daddy
Was when his dark hair had turned to silver gray.

California cottonfields
Where labor camps were full of worried, men with broken dreams
California cottonfields
Was as close to wealth as daddy ever came.

California cottonfields
Where labor camps were full of worried, men with broken dreams
California cottonfields
Was as close to wealth as daddy ever came...