arvada

Arvada

"Arvada" comes from the same kind of experience as "Johnny Thurmond". I can think about the problems of farming a hundred years ago, write about that after reading and talking to people, and maybe come up with a pretty good song. It takes talking to people who are in farming now to help you understand that things haven't changed that much.

If you're going to be a farmer, the land you're farming is probably going to be owned by people who wear suits and ties and live in the suburbs of the big cities, who don't know anything about farming. All they want to do is make sure that it's organized to the point where they can begin to realize profit from their investment. That really takes farming out of the hands of the small farmer. You can't make it as a small farmer. The army is built out of small farmers who couldn't make it, mainly Southern and Western boys.

I went into a liquor store over on Cole Street in San Francisco to get some whiskey. There was a 40 year old chicano fellow wearing a nice suit and a tie who was a little bit drunk. He was halfway through a story to the Irish fellow who was running the counter. I was just waiting for service, eavesdropping on the story. Then we got to talking and he back-tracked over the story as we were walking up the street.

He was farming in the San Joaquin, on a small ground that was owned by a big company. He'd come up to the city to try to talk the executives running the company into cosigning a note at his local bank for him to replace some equipment which was wearing out. The rest of the story is what the song is about.

In the springtime I married Arvada,
Together our lives were as one;
The help of her hands was a blessing,
As we worked in the warm valley sun.
The seasons flew by in a hurry,
I saved for the purchase of land,
My wife filled a box with small clothing
Put aside for the child we had planned.

But at night when we looked at the programs
And the good life in the country outside,
In her eyes came a sad look of longing,
And sometimes I knew that she cried.
So I planted a field for Arvada,
The harvest to be hers alone,
To buy something she'd always wanted
And give her acause to stay home.

The investors got into a law suit,
My water was lost for a year,
The field that I made for Arvada
Was watered alone by her tears.
The ways of the world are so funny,
A man will lose what he's sown;
Arvada has gone to the city,
She's a woman with a mind of her own.

A swallow will leave with the season,
And nothing can cause it to wait;
And so with my lovely Arvada,
And now I must laugh at my fate.
My name is Jose Archuleta,
I live by the work of my hands;
I can show you the changes of weather,
I have mastered the ways of the land.

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