Tough Truckin’
As the Puritans dried up the alcohol
And the influenza virus waned,
As another anniversary of Red summer came around
As Butter Beans and Susie gained Vaudeville fame,
A fever took hold to hit the northbound road,
We packed up everything we owned
To board the Orange Blossom Train
Heading up the Atlantic Coast.
As the stock market rose
And the stock yards grew,
As Henry Ford’s invention
Created jobs for glass, rubber and steel,
As the trap doors of speakeasies
Hid the booze,
Jim Crow buoyed upon the northern lakes
While we caught the Illinois Central or the Dixie Flyer
To Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago.
As the fife and the drum
Found its way to the edgy Delta sound,
As the bo-weevils ate another crop
The tenets were cheated once again
As the Mississippi river caught the echoes
Of Son House and Satchmo,
Highway 61 carried those who couldn’t take the train.
As Texas oil coated the state, the Invisible Empire maintained its terror campaign;
They burned people with acid and castrated men,
Tarred and feathered folks for working together
Demanding fair wages from the cotton field.
Lead Belly and Blind Lemon Jefferson captured tortured spirits by singing the Blues,
Double entendre embodied the lyrics holding raw unedited truth,
So we pack our gingham clothes with no intention of looking back,
As the Argonaut whistle blows
And the sun radiates in the western sky,
Better days await us
Once we get to the golden pacific coast.
One tortured nickel at a time,
One foot in front of the other,
Coming out of the southland
To elevate our condition of existence
In America
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