my drifiting memory goes back to the spring of 43
when i was just a child in mama's arms
my daddy plowed the ground and prayed someday we might leave this rundown mortgaged oklahoma farm

and then one night i heard my daddy saying to my mama
that he'd finall saved enough to go
californa was his dream of paradise
fore he had seen pictures in magazines
that told him so

californa cottonfields
where labor camps are filled with worried men with broken dreams
californa cottonfields
as close to welath as daddy ever came

well almost everything we had was sold or left behind
from my daddy's plow to the fruit that mama canned
and some folks came to say farewell and see what all we had to sell
and some just came to shake my daddy's hand

well the Model A was loaded down and californa 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 turned to silver gray

(repeat chours 2x)