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 he could leave

This run down mortaged Oklahoma farm

Then one night I heard my daddy sayin' to my mama

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 filled with worried men with broken dreams

California cottonfields was as close to wealth as daddy ever came

[ ac.guitar ]

Almost everything we had to sow we left behind

From my daddy's plows to the fruit that mama canned

Some folks came to say farewell and see what all we had to sell

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...

California cottonfields...