David HB Drake  Lyrics for David's Albums

Hangin' out at Aldo Leopold's Cabin
Photo by Betty Salamun

This area is a work-in-progress of all the lyrics and chords to songs found on my recordings.  It will take a while so if you have a particular song or album you want the lyrics to, please e-mail me at david@davidhbdrake.com and I will send them !

 C

Early in the morning with the dew just forming

                        C                 F                C

            in the grass of the green wood tree

F                                      C

Lead me to a lake, it's all it will take

                  D                           G

            it's just like heaven to me

C                                          

Later in the evening with the sun just leaving

                 C            F               C

            all wet and pink on the shore

F                                              C                        

Leave me to lying ‘neath a tall old pine

                    D        G        C

            and bother me no more.

There's a blizzard coming like a holy summons come in from Copper Falls

White winds wail like an old wives tale and the crystal snowflakes fall

But everyone's lying round the fireside passing hot spiced cider ‘round

It can blow all night cause it's such a sight in the morning when the wind dies down.

(CHORUS)

 Now people will say that there's a lot to pay, the whole wide year around

If the heat don't beat you, the mosquitoes eat you, you can slip in the mud and drown

Before you're knowing it's always snowing  so deep you cannot see

But once or twice it's just so nice its just like heaven to me.

(CHORUS TWICE)

(Adapted by Dan Kedding)

        C                                                    F                  C

I've crossed the broad Flambeau, I've portaged the Fox,

C                        Am              D                 G

Swum the Little Copper and followed the Black

        C                              F                C

The Sugar is muddy, the St. Croix is clear

C                                       G                C

Down by the Eau Claire I courted my dear.

 CHORUS:

C              F               C                   G

Lie lie lie, lee lee lee, give me your hand,

C              F               C           G      C

Lie lie lie, lee lee lee, give me your hand,

C              F               C                   G

Lie lie lie, lee lee lee, give me your hand,

             G                         G                 C

There's many a river that crosses our land.

The sweet Chippewa it runs frosty and gliding

The Crooked Rock River is weaving and winding

The old Wisconsin courses the plain

I never will walk by the Eau Claire again 

(CHORUS)

 She hugged me, she kissed me, she called me her dandy

The Wolf it is rocky, the Plover is sandy,

She hugged me,  she kissed me, she called me her own

Down by the Eau Claire she left me alone.

 (CHORUS)

 The girls of the Peshtigo, they're fair and they're pretty

Big Rib and Yellow have many of beauty,

The Kickapoo flows swiftly past girls by the shore

Down by the Eau Claire I'll wander no more

 (CHORUS)

KINGDOM COME

(David HB Drake )

 (CAPO 3rd Fret to sound in Cm)

    Am                     C                        G

In sunless holds of rotting ships we take the wild Atlantic Trip

      Am                 G                           F              E        Am

To greet the Ellis Island slip with our eyes and bellies hollow

    Am                   C                        G

A place to love, a place to pray, a chance to work for decent pay

        Am                     G                         F               E             Am

And leave our marks along the way for those who soon will follow.

[CHORUS]

 C               G                           Am                      F

On to America We cry, We've come to live, perhaps to die

      Am                         G                        F                           E

On untilled land with endless sky...God knows what We'll become?

        C                    G                           Am                          F

The old world is behind us now, We'll hitch our hopes up to a plow

        Am                   G                            F                E             Am

And live in freedom here somehow in a land called Kingdom Come!

 From Germany and France we came to northern lands with Indian names

To make our farms and lay our claims to forest, field, and county.

The sons of Norway, Finns and Poles, to cut the trees and mine the coal

And for our freedom risk our souls to seek the young land's bounty.

 [CHORUS]

 We face the western wagon track with what we carry on our backs

But find a corner in our sacks for one small piece of homeland.

A carved wood box, a piece of lace, a picture of my mother's face,

The seeds of our ancestral place to plant here where we now stand.

 [CHORUS] 

We'll live in freedom here somehow...In a land called Kingdom Come!

WHEN I FIRST CAME TO THIS LAND

(Collected by Oscar Brand)

 C                           F         C     F        C     G           C

When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man

C                F       C               G                 C

So I got myself a shack, and I did what I could.

          F          C         G             C

And I call my shack "Break my back"

C                          F               C             G                C

But the land was sweet and good, and I did what I could.

When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man

So I got myself a farm, and I did what I could.

And I call my farm "Muscle in my arm"

And I call my shack "Break my back"

But the land was sweet and good, and I did what I could.

When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man

So I got myself a duck, and I did what I could.

And I call my duck "out of luck"

And I call my farm "Muscle in my arm"

And I call my shack "Break my back"

But the land was sweet and good, and I did what I could.

When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man

So I got myself a cow, and I did what I could.

And I call my cow "No milk now"

And I call my duck "out of luck"

And I call my farm "Muscle in my arm"

And I call my shack "Break my back"

But the land was sweet and good, and I did what I could.

When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man

So I got myself a wife, and I did what I could.

And I call my wife, "Joy of my life"

And I call my cow "No milk now"

And I call my duck "out of luck"

And I call my farm "Muscle in my arm"

And I call my shack "Break my back"

But the land was sweet and good, and I did what I could.

 (Make up additional verses!)

BIG BEVANS MINE

(CD  and 1998 cassette only / not on video)

David HB Drake / c. September 26, 1989 

(Acapella / Usually in Dm)

      Dm                               C              A7

My name is Will Penrose, I am a lead miner

    Dm                               C                A7

In southwest Wisconsin I spent of my time

    Dm                 C                   Dm           A7

In Platteville the year was eighteen forty- five

           Dm                           A7              Dm

When I went to work in the Big Bevans Mine.

Pull out my short shovel, my pick and my auger

One foot in the bucket, one hand on the line

They lowered us down where Galena was waiting

A vein of lead ore in the Big Bevans Mine.

Crawl into the bear hole with hands and knees bleeding

Muck out the rough ore, Lord, it's breaking my spine

With no light to see but my small stickin' Tommy

I labored a year in the Big Bevans Mine.

Now I was so poor that I lived in the mine shaft

Behind the gob-walling my dinner I'd dine

I lived underground, so they called me a “badger”

And I lived and died in the Big Bevans Mine.

One day after blasting they called for a trimmer

I needed the money, the job it was mine

I poked at the ceiling to check for loose rock there

When a rumbling roared out of the Big Bevans Mine.

The last thing I saw were the walls closing round me

I died with no marker, no tombstone so fine

But my picture, it stands on the flag of Wisconsin

I am a lead miner from the Big Bevans Mine.

(Sally Rogers)         

**A CAPELLA / USUALLY IN “A” 

(CHORUS)

       A                                                                                  D

Oh Agnes, won't you go with me?  We'll be married in style

                 D                A                                      E

And we'll cross Lake Michigan, so blue and so wild.

                     A                                                              D

We'll cross over Lake Michigan till we come to the shore

                D                  A                        E                         D

And our orchards will blossom for our babes as they're born.

Oh yes, I will go with thee, leave the city behind,

Though my parents think little of our life on a farm

Oh to leave the gay city life, to be married on a farm

But I'll watch the orchards bloom in spring,  spend the winters warm in your arms.

 (CHORUS) 

Three children she gave to him, Curtis, Addie, and Dee,

And their fourth child, little Gussy came, ten years after these,

And she raised them with loving hand and with firmness of mind

And she raised them through troubled times,  Agnes, strong willed and kind.

 (CHORUS)

 Now three score years have gone and past, like the fruit on the tree

And her children have children, with babes on their knees

And they all join in the summertime on the crystal lake shore

To meet Grandma Agnes, now twelve years and four-score.

 (CHORUS)

(Carl Sandburg)

      G                                                                              G                                          D

My name is Jon Jonson, I come from Wisconsin , I work in the lumber- woods there

              D                                  D

When I go down the street, the people I meet,  They say... "What's your name?"

...and I say (REPEAT)

(Traditional)

D                       A                     A                                 D

A is for ax, and that we all know,            B is for boy who can use it also

D                                 A                               A                           D

C is for chopping, our work to begin, and D is for danger we always are in.

 (CHORUS)

       D                            A

So merry, so merry, so merry are we

      A                                D

No mortal on earth is as happy as we

            D                                             A

With a hey-derry, die-derry, do-derry dum

            A                                       D

Give a shantyboy grub and then nothing goes wrong.

E is for echo that through the woods ring, F is for foreman, the head of our gang

G is for grindstone at night we do turn and H is for handle, oh so smoothly worn

 (CHORUS)

I is for iron that we mark our pines, J is for jovial we are all the time

K is for keen edge, our axes we keep and L is for lice that keep us from sleep.

(CHORUS)

M is for moss that we chink our camps,  N is for needle that we mend our pants

O is for owl who hoots in the night and P is for pine that we always fell right.

(CHORUS)

Q is for quick that we put ourselves to, R is for river we haul the logs to

S is for sleigh that we haul the logs on, and T is for team , that pulls them along. 

(CHORUS)

U is for uses we put ourselves to, V is for valley we haul the logs through

W is for woods that we leave in the spring, and that's all the verses that I'm going to sing!

 (CHORUS)

(Traditional)

A CAPELLA/ USUALLY SUNG IN “D”

 (Chorus)

                 D                                  A              D

Have you ever been down to the cranberry bogs?