My old man had a rounder's soul

He'd hear an old freight train
Then he'd have to go
Said he'd been blessed with a gipsy bone

That's the reason they guessed
He'd been cursed to roam
Came into town back before the war

Didn't even know what it was
He was looking for
He carried a tattered bag for his violin

It was full of lots of songs
Of places that he'd been
He talked real ea-sy had a smiling way

To pass along to you
When his fiddle played
Making people drop their cares and woes

To hum out loud those tunes
That his fiddle howed
Till the people there began to join that sound

And everyone in town was laughing
Singing, dancing round
Like the fiddler's tune was all they heard that night

As if some dream said
"All the world is right"
His fiddler's eye caught one beauty there

She had that rollin' flowin'
golden kind of hair
He played for her as if she danced alone

He played his favorite songs
Ones he called his own
He played until she was the last to go

He stopped and packed his case
And said he'd take her home

All the nights that passed a child was born

All the years that passed
That love would keep them warm
All their lives they'd share a dream come true

All because she danced
while his fiddle tuned
My old man had a rounder's soul

He'd hear an old freight train
Then he'd have to go
All that I recall said when I was so young

No one else could really
Sing those songs he sung