Album: The Voice Of Our Ancestors (1996)

Bitter Harvest


Outlaw was a humble man,
as the story would reveal
an honest law-abiding man,
just a farmer in his field
His dear wife had passed away
In the winter of '25
Did his best to raise the children
and to keep that farm alive

Then came that awful drought
and the children's hunger pains
Crops failed and the springtime passed
Without a single drop of rain
The weeks passed, the sheriff came
With the banke at his side
Took the farm that his family had lived on all
their lives

Tears fell from the children's eyes
He kissed them each farewell
He be back when some work was found
But only time could tell
He knew his kin would raise them up
To be kind and gentle folk
To get as near as the best for them
Was all that he could hope

[CHORUS:]
and then the rain came - it was a blood spill
The gunfire was heard through the cities and the fields

Dug out his dusty six-gun
That he carried as a calvary scout
Made a mask from an old bandanna
Saddled up for a ride to town
Masked man slid down from the saddle
Walked the steps to the bank's front door
Left the town with a bag full of gold
and the greedy bank man dead on the floor

Thus began his career as an outlaw
Lived a life at the end of a gun
Day to day: bank to bank
Doomed to spend his life on the run
All the common people loved him
One of them who had taken a stand
against the banks that had bled them dry
and sucked the blood of the working man

The man died as the story told it
ambushed at the edge of town
On his feet with his six-gun blazing
Blood and gold spread on the ground
The man Lives in the lives of the people
The deeds done and the stories told
The man's gone but he Lives forever
In the tales of the guns and gold