American Rivers Lyrics

Tom Russell American Rivers

Ain't no more cane on the Brazos
Yeah, yeah yeah
It's all been ground down to molasses
Yeah yeah yeah

I saw a red iron sunsets - From a rust iron bridge
In the Indian country -Of the mockingbird kid
I saw the moon in a boxcar - Being carried as freight
Through 62 winters - Through 48 states
In an old Chinese graveyard - I slept in the weeds
When a song and a story - Were all a kid needs
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
Colorado, Yeah Alleghany, Shenandoah, Susquehanny
And the Wabash and the Hudson and the brave Rio Grande
I was a kid there asleep in the sandy old water
Yeah old water

We named 'em for Indians - Our guilt to forsake
The Delaware the Blackfoot - The Flathead the Snake
Now they roll past casinos _ And old hamburger stands
They're all waving farewell - To the kid on the lamb
With their Jig sawed old arteries - So clogged and defiled
No open heart miracle - Is gonna turn 'em back wild
Past towns gone to bankers - Past fields gone to seed
All cut up and carved out - So divided by greed
And old grandfather catfish - With his whiskers so long
And his life in a struggle - Cuz the oxygen's gone

Oh mom I miss you
I woke up and screamed
These American rivers - They poison my dreams
Colorado, Alleghany, Shenandoah, Susquehanny
And the Wabash and the Hudson and the brave Rio Grande
I was a kid there I was asleep in the sandy old water
Yeah old water