California Cottonfields Song Lyrics and Chords by Merle Haggard
California Cottonfields
Recorded by Merle Haggard
Written by Dallas Frazier
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My drifting memory
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goes back to the
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spring of '
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43
When
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I was just a child in momma's
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arms
My
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daddy plowed the
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ground and promised
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someday we would
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leave
This
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run-down mortgaged
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Oklahoma
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farm
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Then one night I heard my daddy
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saying to my
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momma
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That he'd finally saved enough to
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go
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California
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was his dream a
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paradise for
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he had seen
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Pictures in
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magazines that
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told him so
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Cali
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fornia
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Cottonfields
Where
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labor camps were
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filled with weary
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men with broken
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dreams
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fornia
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Cottonfields
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close to wealth as
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daddy ever
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came
Nearly everything we
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had was sold or
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left
be
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hind
From
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my daddy's plow to the soup that momma
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canned
Some
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folks came to say
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farewell or see what
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all we had to
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sell
Some
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just came to shake
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my daddy's
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hand
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That model A was loaded down and
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California
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bound
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A change of luck was just 4 days
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away
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But the only change
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that I remember
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seeing in my
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daddy
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Was when his dark hair
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turned to silver
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gray
Repeat #2
FAQ
Who sang the the song California Cottonfields?
- The song California Cottonfields was sang by Merle Haggard.
Who is Merle Haggard?
- Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 - April 6, 2016) was an American country singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler.
Haggard was born in Oildale, California, during the Great Depression. His childhood was troubled after the death of his father, and he was incarcerated several times in his youth. After being released from San Quentin State Prison in 1960, he managed to turn his life around and launch a successful country music career. He gained popularity with his songs about the working class that occasionally contained themes contrary to anti-Vietnam War sentiment of some popular music of the time. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, he had 38 number-one hits on the US country charts, several of which also made the Billboard all-genre singles chart. Haggard continued to release successful albums into the 2000s.
He received many honors and awards for his music, including a Kennedy Center Honor (2010), a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2006), a BMI Icon Award (2006), and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977), Country Music Hall of Fame (1994) and Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame (1997). He died on April 6, 2016—his 79th birthday—at his ranch in Shasta County, California, having recently suffered from double pneumonia.
