Arkansas (feat. Peter Yarrow & Bethany Yarrow)

Phillips County, Arkansas
Black sharecroppers
Kept down by the law

Fifty years since Lincoln's war
Emancipation
Ain't worth much anymore

I was sheriff and trouble was in store

I don't blame the circumstances
Don't blame the place or time
When I had a choice 'tween right and wrong
Couldn't quite make up my mind

I looked the other way
Can't pretend I didn't know
But if I can't own my own mistakes
What's left to call my own?
What's left to call my own?

I heard that farmers organized
Some were armed
The whites were terrified

Didn't know what their intentions were
I formed a posse
Needed to make sure

Were they a threat? Or were they just dirt poor?

I don't blame the circumstances
Don't blame the place or time
When I had a choice 'tween right and wrong
Couldn't quite make up my mind

I looked the other way
Can't pretend I didn't know
But if I can't own my own mistakes
What's left to call my own?
What's left to call my own?

I led the posse on its search
We found sharecroppers in a church
I heard "watch out, he has a gun"
Then I just turned to run

The rifles' echo in my head
Tell the Devil count the dead
The rats, the mud, the misty cold
The stories never told

Should have kept my men under control

I don't blame the circumstances
Don't blame the place or time
When I had a choice 'tween right and wrong
Couldn't quite make up my mind

I looked the other way
Can't pretend I didn't know
But if I can't own my own mistakes
What's left to call my own?
What's left to call my own?

Phillips County, Arkansas
Black sharecroppers
Were kept down by the law



Credits
Writer(s): Jim Stanard
Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com

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