Dave Alvin/Tom Russell

(Blue Horn Toad Music, BMI, and Frontera Music, ASCAP, administered by Bug Music)





I’m just tryin’ to make a livin’

I’m an old man at thirty-nine

With two kids and an ex-wife

Who moved up to Riverside

I’m workin’ down on the border

Drivin’ back roads every night

Mountains east of El Cajon

North of the Tecate line.



Where the California summer sun

Will burn right through your soul

But in the winter you can freeze to death

In the California snow.



I catch the ones I’m able to

And watch the others slip away

I know some by their faces

And I even know some by name

I guess they think that we’re all

Movie stars and millionaires 

I guess that they still believe 

That dreams come true up here.



But I guess the weather’s warmer down in Mexico

And no one ever tells them ‘bout the California snow.



Last winter I found a man and wife 

Just about daybreak

Layin’ in a frozen ditch

South of the interstate

I wrapped ‘em both in blankets

But she’d already died

The next day we sent him back alone

Across the borderline.



I don’t know where they came from

Or where they planned to go

But we carried her all night long

Through the California snow.



Sometimes when I’m alone out here

I get to thinkin’ about my life

Maybe I should go to Riverside

And try to fix things with my wife

Or maybe just get in my truck

And drive as far as I can go

Away from all the ghosts that haunt

The California snow.



Where the California summer sun

Can burn right to your soul

And in the winter you can freeze to death 

In the California snow.