Troubled Fields

I suppose after years of listening to Nancy Griffith, I've come to love her more than I can express. I've heard this song more than once, but apparently hadn't "listened/heard" quite enough...I've come to understand over the years what my purpose is on this planet...perhaps at times i am the plow,but i do know without a doubt I am the "mule" and if i've learned anything, it's that sweat and tears produce Soulshine and Lovelight...so good friends when the fields of your heart seem as if they are "in dust as deep as snow"stop looking inside your pockets cause i promise, if you look beyond the dust "the rain will fall"...'you'll be the mule and i can be the plow'. Cause "there's still a lotta love, here in these troubled fields"..(check out the Nancy Griffith special on Ovation! nice stuff).

Troubled Fields (Nanci Griffith & Rick West)

Baby I know that we've got trouble in the fields

When the bankers swarm like locust out there turning away our yield

The trains roll by our silos, silver in the rain

They leave our pockets full of nothingBut our dreams and the golden grain

Have you seen the folks in line downtown at the station

They're all buying their ticket out and talking the great depression

Our parents had their hard times fifty years ago

When they stood out in these empty fields in dust as deep as snow

[Chorus:]And all this trouble in our fields

If this rain can fall, these wounds can heal

They'll never take our native soilBut if we sell that new John Deere

And then we'll work these crops with sweat and tears

You'll be the mule I'll be the plow

Come harvest time we'll work it out

There's still a lotta love, here in these troubled fields

There's a book up on the shelf about the dust bowl days

And there's a little bit of you and a little bit of me

In the photos on every page

Now our children live in the city and they rest upon our shoulders

They never want the rain to fall or the weather to get colder

[Chorus] You'll be the mule I'll be the plow

Come harvest time we'll work it out

There's still a lotta love, here in these troubled fields