Here are the lyrics to a song I wrote some time ago.

Dustbowl Dreams
by
Jesse JB Neel

I could tell by his face, and the way that he stood,
his life had been long, but it hadn't been good.
He was burnt by the sun, and bent by the cold,
his wrinkles were deep, and his shoulders were bowed.

His hat in his hand, he moved through the smoke,
as he shuffled along, he smiled and he joked.
He knew every face, and each one knew him,
when he came to my place, he stopped and he grinned.

"Pardon me sir", he tapped on the chair,
"is this seat here taken, is anyone there?"
Then held up one finger, twisted and brown,
the barkeeper nodded and set the glass down.

He'd come in each night, and have just one drink,
that very same place, he'd sit and he'd think.
Of a time when the land was fertile and green,
before mother nature turned nasty and mean.

The wind and sand had blown his life away,
the hopes he had, they vanished with the rain.
His dustbowl dreams were gone, they wouldn't last very long,
and left behind the man I met today.

This place had been his, and his father's before,
they'd milled every board, from the roof to the floor.
And the rocks in the fireplace, that stood in the wall,
He'd hauled in a wagon, it took most the fall.

He'd slept in the corner, where the jukebox now stands,
And the folks park their cars, on what were his lands.
Out the back door, there is concrete and steel,
where once there was corn and wheat in the field.

The land had been cleared, and the stumps had been coaxed,
from the ground with ax, and the oxen in yokes.
In the heat of the days, he had followed the plow,
from the rooster's alarm, to the hoot of the owl.

Then came the black blizzards, that filled up the sky,
turned day into night, and blinded the eye.
The world had turned over, and what once had sprang,
from the ground, had been covered with earthen remains.

The wind and sand had blown his life away,
the hopes he had, they vanished with the rain.
His dustbowl dreams were gone, they didn't last very long,
and left behind the man I met today.

The last straw had come, when the well it went dry.
The wheat fell to chaff, and the corn, and the rye,
had withered and crumbled to dust in the soil,
that now deep below, produce methane and oil.

His daddy, he died, at the turn of the leaves,
he passed in the night unable to breathe.
The sagebrush took over, the stock turned to bone,
and then came the banker to call in the loan.

He took the last sip from the glass that he held,
eased himself back with a sigh and said, "Well".
He picked up his hat and slid from the chair'
and as he moved off, I heard him, I swear.

He hummed an old song from a long time ago,
the words unforgotten, they came from his soul.
He turned at the door and he sang this refrain,
I only wish now, I had asked him his name.

The wind and sand they blew my life away,
the hopes I had, they vanished with the rain.
My dustbowl dreams are gone, they didn't last very long,
and left behind the man you see today.