American Rivers

Intro verse 1 Ain’t no more cane on the Brazos Yeah, yeah, yeah It’s all been ground down to molasses Yeah, yeah, yeah verse 2 I saw a red iron sunset From a rust iron bridge In the Indian country Of the mockingbird kid verse 3 I saw the moon in a boxcar Being carried as freight Through sixty-two winters Through forty-eight states verse 4 In an old Chinese graveyard I slept in the weeds When a song and a story Were all a kid needs Verse 5 Hear the rhymes and the rattles Of those runaway trains And the songs of the cowboy And the sound of the rain And it’s, "Mom, I miss you" I woke up and screamed American rivers Roll deep through my dreams It's Colorado, yeah, Allegheny Shenandoah, Susquehanny And the Wabash and the Hudson, the brave Rio Grande I was a kid there, asleep in the sandy old water Yeah, old water, yeah Interlude Verse 6 We named ‘em for Indians Our guilt to forsake The Delaware the Blackfoot The Flathead the Snake Verse 7 Now they roll past casinos And old hamburger stands They’re all waving farewell To the kid on the land Verse 8 With their jigsawed old arteries So clogged and defiled No open heart miracle Is gonna turn ’em back wild Verse 9 Past towns gone to bankers Past fields gone to seed All cut up and carved out So divided by greed verse 10 And old grandfather catfish With his whiskers so long And his life in a struggle 'Cause the oxygen’s gone "Oh, mom, I miss you", I woke up and screamed These American rivers They poison my dreams It's Colorado, yeah, Allegheny Shenandoah, Susquehanny And the Wabash and the Hudson, the brave Rio Grande I was a kid there, I was asleep in the sandy old water Yeah, old water, yeah Outro