California Cottonfields chords by Merle Haggard

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My drifting memory goes back to the spring of '43

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When I was just a child in momma's arms

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My daddy plowed the ground and promised someday we would leave

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This run-down mortgaged Oklahoma farm


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Then one night I heard my daddy saying to my momma

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That he'd finally saved enough to go

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California was his dream a paradise for he had seen

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Pictures in magazines that told him so


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California Cottonfields

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Where labor camps were filled with weary men with broken dreams

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California Cottonfields

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As close to wealth as daddy ever came


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Nearly everything we had was sold or left behind

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From my daddy's plow to the soup that momma canned

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Some folks came to say farewell or see what all we had to sell

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Some just came to shake my daddy's hand


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That model A was loaded down and California bound

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A change of luck was just 4 days away

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But the only change that I remember seeing in my daddy

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Was when his dark hair turned to silver gray


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Then one night I heard my daddy saying to my momma

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That he'd finally saved enough to go

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California was his dream a paradise for he had seen

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