The first and last time I met her
We was children seven years by.
She held my hand so softly.
She was perfectly shy.
My family went to wander
Six years in foreign lands.
I turned up last evening
To take her by my hand.
Long about break of mornin'
I met with my girl.
She looked at me with crossed eyes
So I sent her from this world.
I cracked her with my shovel.
She bent my shovel's blade.
She still had them crossed eyes
As I dug her crooked grave.
This is how it's always been.
This is how we do things in the country.
This is how it's always been.
This is how we do things in the country.
Long the next day mornin'
The rains--they came down.
Washed away that crooked grave--
Washed her straight into town.
She nudged 'gainst Judge Henry.
She looked at him with cock eyes.
Judge Henry--he's as thick as the best built dam
But even he could see she'd passed on by.
Long late that evening
I sought her kinfolk out.
I asked to sing at her funeral.
They said, ("Son we'd be proud.")
My song--it began to bend and break
As the box went in the ground.
They dug her a brand new hole
With walls true up and down.
This is how it's always been.
This is how we do things in the country.
This is how it's always been.
This is how we do things in the country.
Late in the dark time
I went creepin' 'round the town
into every pine board shed.
All their tools I did found.
I put them in my vice grip,
Turned 'em to the left and right,
Returned them to their tool sheds,
Straightened out this town with might.
DUET
Now when they hoe a garden . . .
(It angles to the northeast.)
When they raise a new building . . .
(It leans askew and, Lord, does it creak.)
Now when they shape a new tool . . .
(From the one's he's made unstraight . . .)
(See every which way--think--they cross it up.)
(Lord, these crooked graves--they will be our fate.)
This is how it's always been.
This is how we do things in the country.
This is how it's always been.
This is how we do things in the country.
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Lyrics submitted by RAM.