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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 

  
D7                              C            G 
Then one night I heard my daddy saying to my momma 

A7                                D7 
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 

  
G   C      D7 
California Cottonfields 

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Where labor camps were filled with weary men with broken dreams 

    C      D7 
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 

  
D7                               C          G 
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 

G                      D7               G 
Was when his dark hair turned to silver gray 

  
D7                              C            G 
Then one night I heard my daddy saying to my momma 

A7                                D7 
That he'd finally saved enough to go 

G          D7              F            C 
California was his dream a paradise for he had seen 

G           D7             G 
Pictures in magazines that told him so