Lyrics



Junction City

My father was an Illinois farmer.  No finer life could there be found
for a boy to spend his childhood in the good clean air on the good warm ground.  
But daddy’s heart  gave out too early; left six kids and bills come due. 
Mom sold the farm; moved to Junction City, and a young boy did what he had to do. 
At twelve years old I worked the tipple; breathed that dust and cut my hands. 
All my life I’ve been a coal miner – Body of a beast, soul of a man.  
When I die look to heaven.  That is where my soul will be found.
Place my body in a mausoleum.  I’ve did my time in the cold dark ground.  
I’ve seen men die by the hundreds. I’ve Watched them choke on their own lungs
for little more than bleak subsistence.  A man must crawl if he can’t run.  
Everyday a wake and I pray to Jesus.  My faith, my life I place in him.
I kiss my wife and I kiss my children, then in the cold dark ground I go again.  
When I die look to heaven.  That is where my soul will be found. 
Place my body in a mausoleum.  I’ve did my time in the cold dark ground.
I’ve did my time… in the cold dark ground.



Will she be there

I’ve come a long long way from my tired old home.  And though I pray, I can’t say.  This choice I’ve made, it could be wrong.  For I am trusting in a promise that she made me long ago.  She’d meet me there, but it’s been years.  Will she be there?  I don’t know.  But I am just a poor boy who works the fields he could never own.  So to her word I have deferred. She is what I’m trusting on.  So if I seem apprehensive surely you can understand this question that won’t leave me alone as we approach this foreign land.  Will she be there?  Will she be there?  Will she be there?  Who’s to know.  The captain said we’re near now.  I make my way up on the deck.  And with straining eyes and a worried mind, I stare off toward the west.  And there she stands in the distance just like she swore to me.  And her torch it glows.  And now I know that a man can trust in liberty.  So if you feel apprehensive, believe me I can understand.  And though he never will be perfect, this is still the promise land.  And she’ll be there.  She’ll be there.  She’ll be there.  And her words they ring true.  They ring true.    



The Carl Vinson
 
It’s been six months since I left home and this last cruise has seemed twice as long. 
At night in my bunk I think of home and you Mary. 
You know that’s where I want to be, but I’ve got this job to do.  
Cause I work the deck of the Carl Vinson – An E-6 now.  Soon I’ll make 7. 
I know a NAVY wife is dealt an unfair hand,
But wherever we go you know I love you and I’ll write you ever chance I can.  
So how’s Katy?  Send her love from her dad. 
How are you my lady?  I hope you’re not sad.  
But if you are, I’ve got good news.  We turned for home just yesterday
And in two weeks we’ll be in the USA, and in two weeks darling I’ll be home with you. 
And the fifty seven hundred people who made up this wing and crew will go their own way. 
But oh – oh I’ll remember them always.  
Martinez sleeps in the bunk above me.  Got a little baby boy he ain’t never got to see. 
And Johnson, Johnson says this will be her last cruise. 
Gonna try her hand at civilian life.  Sometimes I wonder if I should to.  
But I guess I’ll stay on the Carl Vinson.    It’s in my blood.  I’m a career man. 
Like sailors of old, I love the ocean so blue,
but I’ll still drink a toast and celebrate when this trip is finally through. 
And we’ll sin oh-oh blow the man down, oh-oh blow the man down, oh-oh blow the man,
oh-oh blow the man down.  Blow us all back to where we belong. 
The USS Carl Vinson is coming home!  The men and women of the Carl Vinson are coming home! 
We’re coming home!  We’re coming home!  Coming home!


  
Let the wind blow
 
Gray county Kansas, Eighteen and Seventy-one.  It ain’t rained a drop in six weeks.  Looks like my crops are gone.  Dried up by the sun.  Pushed over by the wind.  A wind so strong that before to long even the best man bends.  Everyone bends down to his knees to that prairie wind.  Everyone, everyone but me.  So let the wind blow wild across this ground.  Let it blow, and just try to knock me down.  It will see that I am strong, as many men have found.  So let that demon wind blow up against me.  I’ll turn it back around.  I was born in Alabama, just east of Birmingham.  Fought for the southern right cause I am a southern man.  But God he did not fight for us and them Yankees they won out.  And after Eighteen and sixty-five the north started moving south.  And them carpetbaggers didn’t like my kind, uneducated, white and poor.  So in April of Eighteen and sixty nine I left Alabama for that great American desert on a homestead claim.  Says if I stay here for just five years it all goes in to my name.  Just two years left.  I done suffered three.  Now there ain’t nothing that the devil can do ever going to make me leave.  So let the wind blow wild across this ground.  Let it blow, and just try to knock me down.  It will see that I am strong, as many men have found.  So let that demon wind blow up against me.  I’ll turn it back around.  But sometimes I got to wonder why I even fight for a 160 acres not meant for life.  It a 110 and the only shade’s from the swarm of bugs that come to eat your crops away.  But there’s something about a piece of land a man can call his own, no matter what worthless stretch of earth you lay your claim upon.   So let the wind blow wild across this ground.  Let it blow, and just try to knock me down.  It will see that I am strong, as many men have found.  So let that demon wind blow up against me.  I ain’t a giving ground.  Let the wind blow.



Without you 

With these eyes I see the world.  Some is bad.  I choose the good.  A baby’s smile, a gentle stream, a farmer’s field new and green.  I don’t know what I would do without these eyes or without you.  With these hands I do my job.  I take pride and I work hard.  But I enjoy it, always have.  And it’s such a part of who I am.  I don’t know what I would do without these hands or without you.  With this mouth I sing the songs that lift me up and take me home.  I tell the stories that I love so.  And they come from deep down in my soul.  I don’t know what I would without this mouth or without you.  With this heart I feel love all around me and from up above.  From my savior and my family. And the love that you give me.  I don’t know what I would do without this heart or without you.



The Greatest Generation
 

We will put food on the table.  We will put food on the table.  We will put food on the table.  We are M.E.N… M.E.N.  We will build a trail up the mountain.  We will build a trail up the mountain.   We will build a trail up the mountain.  We are C.C.C.  We will win a war cross the ocean.  We will win a war cross the ocean.  We will win a war cross two oceans.  We are U.S.A.  We are M.E.N.  We will put a man on the moon.  We will put a man on the moon.  I said we will put a man on the moon in this decade.  We are U.S.A.  We will pass it to our children.  We will pass it to our children.  We will pass it to our children.  That’s our Job.  We are M.E.N…M.E.N  We will put food on the table.  We will put food on the table.  We will put food on the table.  We are M.E.N… M.E.N.
 

 
Apples

I ain’t gonna eat no apples anymore.  I ain’t gonna eat no apples anymore.  I swear I’d rather die than to touch an apple pie.  I ain’t gonna eat no apples anymore.  My father ran a five and ten cent store.  My father ran a five and ten cent store.   Worked hard and he took pride in how he did provide.  My father ran a five and ten cent store.  Then came that crash of 29.  Then came that crash of 29.   His customers were poor. Couldn’t pay their bills no more.  Then came that crash of 29.  He lost the store and then we lost our home.  He lost the store and then we lost our home.  And though he tried and tried, a job he could not find.  He lost the store and then we lost our home.  He was forced to selling apples on the street.  He was forced to selling apples on the street.  A nickel at a time.  If you’re lucky you get a dime.  He was forced to selling apples on the street.  I guess the shame was more than he could bear.  I guess the shame was more than he could bear.  Committed suicide, his bag of apples by his side.  I guess the shame was more than he could bear.  So, I ain’t gonna eat no apples anymore.  I ain’t gonna eat no apples anymore.  I swear I’d rather die than to touch an apple pie.  I ain’t gonna eat no apples anymore.



Orphan train 

It’s ten degrees.  I’m ten years old, and it’s two in the afternoon as I watch my breath inside the big train station.  I think about my mother – why’d she go so soon, and why my father she never cared to mention.  There’s more kids here than I can count though each is all alone as we all wave our old homes goodbye.  And though I am scared you can’t see it in my eyes.  I’ve come way to far way to fast to cry.  So get on board child if you’re hungry.  Get on board children of the street.  Where we’re going it flows milk and honey.  Get on board the orphan train.  Get on board.  I’d never been aboard a train and I remember how that I took some comfort to hear the big wheels rolling.  I prayed upon the future as the day turned to night, and fell asleep with no way of knowing where I would be when the sun came up or what would I do if no one there cared to take me in.  They said there’s plenty enough families who want kids like you, just no guarantees where you’ll be taken.  The first town came and went.  The next one did the same.  I’d wash my face and comb my hair.  It didn’t matter.  Before too long there’s nothing left , nothing but the shame of being ran out and shown like a herd of cattle,  just waiting for someone to call your name.  Won’t someone please call my name?  Finally I found a home in Danville Illinois.  The rest were sent further on down the line.  A gray hair farmer and his wife said they were looking for a boy.  Showed them me.  Said “he’ll do fine.”  How it worried me that all they’d need was a pair of working hands.  Would they love me?  Would they even try?  But oh how they loved me, and as she put me to bed my fears gave way and I began to cry.  So get on board child if you’re hungry.  Get on board children of the street.  Where we’re going it flows milk and honey.  Get on board the orphan train.  Get on board.  Get on board.  Get on board.  Get on board.
 


Galveston 1900 

We all knew the storm was coming. September weather ain’t no surprise.  So we never once gave thought to running when the pressure started dropping and the tide began to rise.  Just after dark came the hurricane warning. The bridge had washed out and we were all alone.  In the street I could hear the water rising.  A few more inches it will be inside our home.  We ran upstairs when the ground floor went under, praying “oh God please let us see the morning light.”  The lightning flashed just before the thunder, and for just one second I seen such a terrible sight.  Out the window where our neighbor’s house was standing, but it wasn’t standing there now.  Began to wonder if I’d ever see tomorrow.  Began to wonder if I even wanted to now.  It’s forty miles across the bay to Houston, but Houston seems so far away.  I try to be strong, but my tears they flow like water that gathers up around me like the tide of a hurricane.  I always thought I’d live life in Galveston.  Always thought I’d live on the bay.  But I won’t live no more in Galveston, cause Galveston ain’t no more today.   We spent the night upon the roof top, and all of the next day, watching the buildings and the bodies roll with the tide and wash on out to sea.  My children ain’t stopped crying.  They hold to their mother but she don’t say a thing.  And I don’t know what holds tomorrow, like I don’t know what the weather will bring.   It’s forty miles across the bay to Houston, but Houston seems so far away.  I try to be strong, but my tears they flow like water that gathers up around me like the tide of a hurricane.  I always thought I’d live life in Galveston.  Always thought I’d live on the bay.  But I won’t live no more in Galveston, cause Galveston ain’t no more today.  No Galveston done been washed away.



Crossing the river 

We’re crossing the river  and my body is half frozen.  This is no way to spend a Christmas night.  But we are hopeful, that with God’s gracious mercy, tonight we put our enemy to flight.  “The war is going badly” we all heard the general say.  So every man bowed to his knees and to God we prayed that if it be His sovereign will this nation should be born that He would grant us victory by the light of morn.  We are crossing the river.  We’re crossing the river  from Kentucky to Ohio and freedom’s calling from the other side.  It’s been so long, but my hope never faded.  I swore myself to freedom or to die.  I don’t know what awaits me over on the other side,  but I know it must be better than the life I leave behind.  So I’m rowing in this small boat pointing toward a distant light that shines like a beacon in the darkness of the night.  We are crossing the river.  We’re crossing the river, waste deep in the water.  From Laredo to Laredo’s a long way when you come at nightfall, sneaking cross the desert, hoping to find work for a few days. The border guard may catch me and send me back across, but my children they are hungry and I must pay the cost.  So northward I will travel in a desperate search of pay, every moment hoping I can find a better way. We are crossing the river.   We are crossing the river, every man and woman. We don’t know what is on the other shore.  But we are hopeful, and that’s what keeps us going.  Hope is what we all are living for.  We are crossing the river.   We are crossing the river.  




Copyright, Joe Beeler 2014