The Sons of Cimarron County

From the soil blown drifts near Liberal Kansas
To the highway of squatters blown in the breeze
To the labor camps of California
These are the dust bowl refugees

We are the sons of Cimarron County
Forsaken and cast out
By our own hands
Plowing and planting
Grazing with much haste
Now we've forsaken
The Great Plains grasslands

From boiling to freezing, blizzards and locusts
Life was not easy under the Big Sky
And with the drought of 1930
The dust clouds reached five miles high
The dirt clouds might have been rising towards heaven
But by God they were born out of hell
And in the end I suppose we're forgotten
And the story only the land it can tell

We are the sons of Cimarron County
Now we are fleeing
Our home and our land
Our fathers knew the plough
And the toil
But now our fate we don't understand

It's always been you my Oklahoma
Where my mind goes for solace and rest
Oh Oklahoma you have forsaken your best

A mass exodus that lasted a decade
Millions the number the drought would displace
Mary knelt and wept over her Son's body
And gently wiped the dirt from his face

We are the sons of Cimarron County
Now we are ghosts
That rise from a book
We toiled and bled for you Oklahoma
We surely gave more than we took