Pushin On

I left Oklahoma with an east wind on my tail Out to make my bread and butter on that South Pacific rail In eighteen years of living I'd spent thirteen plowing sand Then the farm blowed off to Kansas and daddy said you are a man Darkness chased the daylight as the sun came crashin down Cross the Rolling Plains of Texas, to the west where money's found I was thinking back on Cheyenne and the wrecks that we called home I was thinking bout deliverance, I was thinking I'm alone Pushin on to a better way of life that I just know Is sitting round the corner, waiting for me when I go Pushin on to a better way to be then I just left If you ain't going with me, walk away I'm pushin on Rollin on through Tucson and a Bull came crashing He throwed out all the hobos and he took a little tin He looked at me, I said Tucson ain't a bad place so they say If you try to throw me off this plane we'll both be there today Work was hard to come by in them Central Valley towns When you farm to give your good away a living can't be found So I hopped a north bound freight car, up that coast road I did wind And the sunlight filtered through the cracks, like the hope we chance to find Pushin on to a better way of life that I just know Is sitting round the corner, waiting for me when I go Pushin on to a better way to be then I just left If you ain't going with me, walk away I'm pushin on Well I found a man in Frisco who was lookin for a hand Turning mountains into mudslides, taking gold dust from the land In seven days of turning time he'd pay me seven bills I got two squares and a bedroll in a shack up on the hill I left California with a west wind on my tail Headed back to Oklahoma on that South Pacific rail With a future in my pocket and a grub stake on my back The soreness of my labors and a family down the track Well it's sixty odd years later, and I still hear the sounds Of a mother weeping softly and a freight train leaving town I can feel the wind rush by me in the dark before the dawn And I see that sun a'risin, for a man who's pushin on