It was late in the evenin'
just a few of us pickin',
but the lady she played
so easy and fine
And the chords that she strummed
were so tastefully clever,
they planted this song in my mind

Cause there's somethin' so feminine,
about a mandolin;
the way that they feel,
the way that they ring
Just to see slender fingers,
movin' so fluid,
made this poor heart to sing

And when I get older and I have a daughter,
I'll teach her to sing, and play her my song
And I'll tell her some stories I can barely remember
And hope that she will sing along

Maybe one day she'll take a fancy to pickin',
'Cause when that bug bites you,
you live with the string
And if she could just strum a few simple measures
She could make some young man sing

Cause there's somethin' so feminine
about a mandolin
The way that they feel, the way that they ring
And that evening in a pasture,
somewhere near Austin
That mandolin made me sing,
Her mandolin made me sing