My Old Man - Jerry Jeff Walker

My old man, he had a ramblin' soul

He’d hear an old freight train and he had to roll

Said he’d been blessed with a gypsy bone

That’s the reason I guess he’d been cursed to roam

He came to town back before the war

He didn’t even know that it was he was looking for

He carried a tattered bag for his violin

It was full of songs from places he had been

He talked real easy, had a smilin' way

He could pass it on to you while his fiddle played

He was makin' people drop their cares and woes

They’d hum out loud to tunes that his fiddled bowed

The people there began to join that sound

Everyone in town was laughin', singin', dancin' round

Like the fiddler’s tunes were all they heard that night

As if some dream had said all in the world was right

His eye caught a dancing lady there

She had that rollin', flowin', golden, danglin' kind of hair

He played for her as if she danced alone

He played his favorite songs, the ones he called his own

She alone was dancing in the room

The only thing left moving to his fiddler’s tune

He played until she was the last to go

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

In all the nights that passed, a child was born

And all the years that passed, love would keep them warm

All their lives they’ve shared a dream come true

All because she danced so well to his fiddler’s tune

But the train next morning, she blew a lonesome sound

As if she sang the blues of what she took from town

All that I recall he said when I was young

Was no one else could really sing the songs he sung