The Mid-tempo Ballad of Jimmie Rodgers
© Jackson Rodgers
Well, my name is Jimmie Rodgers
And I’m ‘least half the country singer that he was
I’m a poor boy who asks questions
Lemme tell you, that can often cause a fuss
I’ve been told that I’ve had choices
Upon askin’ many a-rich man proper
But I can’t remember choosin’
To be the twelfth kid of a lifelong sharecropper
I grew up in a wooden cave, we were virtually white slaves
Held captive by “our own fault” of hunger
I never got to go to school, ’cause I was nothing but a tool
For the owner of our one blanket to plunder
That don’t sound like a choice to me, but maybe you can help me see
How I ever could-a rose above my raisin’
So at sixteen I joined the army
With my older sister’s birth certification
Well, now I still dread the day, but it offered extra pay
So I let them on me test some mustard gas
Then I got high in Panama and left my post
A year in jail I then passed
Well, then I met Velta Rose, whose daddy roughly rode
With Roosevelt
She’d sneak out late to see me, and when she’d return
He’d tan her with his Mormon belt
But she and I are coffee drinkers and reasonable thinkers
And so never did we ever join that camp
Most Friday nights she’d hop a board down to the bar
To watch me sing for a few gas stamps
When my story her pap learned, his respect I finally earned
And he helped me build a house in Center Hill
Then, me and Rose, we did get married
To each other and two jobs at the feed mill
Well, now fifteen years have passed, our hair’s a-fadin’ fast
Three times childbirth, my Rose, she has given
I love ’em more than life, ‘specially since most-a mine
Ain’t exactly been worth the livin’
But when they’re all out of the room, my mind becomes a tomb
Where no light but my old dreams can get in
And then I’m left the silence
To remind me how well heard I could have been
And though there’s honor in our life
And the quality’s much more than fair-to-middlin’
Deep down inside I hope my son
Or perhaps his will refuse to settle for settlin’
