Chord/Tab song: California Cottonfields

by Dallas Frazier, recorded by Merle Haggard
charted by Bo Frazer


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Verse1:
My [A]driftin' memory [E]goes back to the [G]spring of '4[D]3,
When [A]I was just a child in momma's [E]arms.
My [A]daddy plowed the [E]ground and promised [G]someday we would [D]leave
This [A]run-down mortgaged [E]Oklahoma [A]farm.
[E]Then one night I heard my daddy [D]sayin' to my [A]momma
[B7]That he'd finally saved enough to [E]go.
[A]California [E]was his dream, a [G]paradise, for [D]he had seen
[A]Pictures in [E]magazines that [A]told him so.

Chorus:
[A]Cali[D]fornia [E]Cottonfields,
Where [D]labor camps were [E]filled with weary [D]men with broken [A]dreams.
[A]Cali[D]fornia [E]Cottonfields,
As [D]close to wealth as [E]daddy ever [A]came.

Verse2:
Nearly everything we had was sold or left behind,
From my daddy's plow to the soup that momma canned.
Some folks came to say farewell or see what all we had to sell;
Some just came to shake my daddy's hand.
That model A was loaded down and California bound;
A change of luck was just 4 days away.
But the only change that I remember seeing in my daddy
Was when his dark hair turned to silver grey.

(Chorus)