littledugout

Little Dug Out Soddy On The Plains

Now we can't forget about the farmers. The farmer is the man who feeds us all, when he's not too busy trying to feed himself. One of the reasons for the railroad was to get sod?busters out, to get farmers to the plains. They came out there and they had to fight the cattlemen, and they had to fight the Indians, had to fight each other, had to fight the weather and the drought.

Farming is nobody's idea of fun. I know that there are people who are bound to the land, like people before them were bound to the land. Farming is in their blood. They'd rather do that than do anything else on earth. The fine and refined pastoral life of the hippie agronomists is, as far as I'm concerned, a myth. There is no work that is harder, working on the land, trusting in the weather, which is synonymous with God. And God becomes a very capricious thing in your life.

In this song, which is simply another variation on "Little Sod Shanty on the Plain" or "Starving to Death on a Government Claim, I've simply tried to, in a humorous way, take the various things that could happen to somebody moving out into the Nebraska or North Dakota plains on government land and trying to make a go of it. I stuck a chorus in there to indicate that, as long as this fellow is an Federal ground, the Feds owe him something. He's really out there doing their job.

The tune is easy and obvious. If you don't like it, make up your own tune. Sing it any way you want.

In the year of seventy-three I took a wife;
I could not weasel out to save my life;
Her daddy was an Injun, said he'd skin me with his knife,
If I did not take his daughter for my wife.
I haven't got a dollar for my seed;
You ought to see the bill I owe for feed;
There's a banker down in town, says he'll loan me all I need,
If I'll ride in and sign a mortgage deed.

In the year of seventy-five I went bust;
Left my wife and me without a single crust;
We got sick on poison water and tired of plowin' dust,
Watchin' all our friends and neighbors goin' bust.
Things they got so bad I couldn't stay;
Made up my mind to hire out for pay;
I was beaten, cursed and robbed and starvin' anyway,
So I turned around and went back home to stay.

When I got home the pox had took my wife;
And the damned raw-hiders nearly got my life;
When I get to heaven no more trouble, toil or strife,
As long as I don't run into my wife.
Now young feller before you head out west,
You have listened to my story of distress;
Oh, a cowboy's life is handsome, some say it is the best;
But a prairie farmer's life is just a mess.

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