My drifting memory goes back to the spring of forty-three
When I was just a child in mama's arms
My daddy plied the ground and prayed someday he could leave
This run-down, mortgaged Oklahoma farm
There's been one night I heard my daddy sayin' to my mom
That he'd finally saved enough to go
California was his dream, a paradise for he had seen
Pictures in magazines that told him so
California cotton fields
Where labor camps were filled with worried men with broken dreams
California cotton fields
As close to wealth as daddy ever came
Almost everything we had was sold or left behind
From my daddy's plow to the fruit that mama canned
Some folks came to say farewell and see what all we had to sell
Some just came to shake my daddy's hand
The Model A was loaded down and California bound
And a change in luck just four days away
But the only change that I remember seein' for my daddy
Was when his dark hair turned to silver gray
California cotton fields
Where labor camps were filled with worried men with broken dreams
California cotton fields
As close to wealth as daddy ever came
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