Meditation

You know, Martha
It's getting harder and harder to find someone to talk to
Virginia's gone crazy, Martha
Everybody screamin' "states' rights"
"War and family"
Well, we're trying awful hard to stay out of it

Sooner or later
They'll be callin' me a traitor
Your friends, Martha; mine
But they'll never take our sons to face those Yankee guns
And be targets in a long gray line

They'll say we made life here in Virginia
And we owe the commonwealth a thing or two
Well, if anyone here owes anyone here
Virginia should be owin'
Me, you

Remember how it used to be
When it was only you and me?
Martha
Remember when we didn't know
How to make potatoes grow?
Back a hundred years ago, Martha

We settled in a corner of the Shenandoah Valley
And we started on a penny and a crumb
You were sweet as clover
And I was green all over
Everywhere excepting my thumb
I think of how it used to be
The way we struggled, Martha
You and me

I took an axe and I chopped us a clearing
Hung us a door on a maple frame
Raised up a roof
Got us out of the weather
Then came Jacob and James

Jacob and James
And April rains
And frost and snow
And growin' pains

You brought me drink, and I planted an acre
Sowed us the seeds we were countin' on
Seems we could grow more than beans by the acre
Welcome, Nathan and John

Jacob and James
Nathan and John
Blessed are those
Heaven smiles upon

Root out the weeds, the stumps and the rocks
up the mule and the cow
Got a Jenny and a Henry Anderson now
An apple tree with a fruited bough
A lovin' wife, with child again
And I'm thinkin' I should sleep with the cow
Martha
Yonder in the barn with the cow

Now send for the doc
Now this could bring 'im
Pour me a drink, and I'll drink for joy
Hem up a denim, roll up a gingham
Name him Robert, he's a boy

Jacob and James
Nathan and John
Jenny and Henry
And Robert, and then
You were gone
Martha

And me
I got twenty-eight years in this farm
My blood, my sweat and my tears in this farm
And no one's gonna come along and say
That I owe any part, not the tiniest part
To anyone in any single way

This farm don't belong to Virginia
My sons bleed, but not for the South
This land here is Anderson land
By the strength of my hand
And the sweat of my brow
For as long as the Lord will allow