Though the brambles took the cabin I was born in

And the briers reclaim the fields I used to plow

There's a yearning in my heart to be going

To that forty acre patch God sow in sprouts.



Arkansas are your rivers still flowing

Is your cotton growing white as snow

Are the squirrels a barking upon old Crowley's ridge

Has the girl I was sparking on gone and burned another bridge.

Arkansas, Arkansas.



I have known the troubles I was born to know

I have wanted things a poor man's born to want

And in all my dreams and memories I go running

Through the fields of Arkansas from which I stroll.



Arkansas are your rivers still flowing

Is your cotton growing white as snow

Do the young men still piddle with the thought of growing rich

And slowly turn the old folks sittin' whittling on a stick.

Arkansas, Arkansas...