Lyrics American Rivers - Tom Russell

American Rivers

Ain’t no more cane on the Brazos
Yeah, yeah yeah
It’s all been ground down to molasses
Yeah yeah yeah
I saw a red iron sunsets — From a rust iron bridge
In the Indian country -Of the mockingbird kid
I saw the moon in a boxcar — Being carried as freight
Through 62 winters — Through 48 states
In an old Chinese graveyard — I slept in the weeds
When a song and a story — Were all a kid needs
Hear the rhymes and the rattles — Of those runaway trains
And the songs of the cowboy — And the sound of the rain
And it’s mom I miss you
I woke up and screamed
American rivers — Roll deep through my dreams
Colorado, Yeah Alleghany, Shenandoah, Susquehanny
And the Wabash and the Hudson and the brave Rio Grande
I was a kid there asleep in the sandy old water
Yeah old water
We named ‘em for Indians — Our guilt to forsake
The Delaware the Blackfoot — The Flathead the Snake
Now they roll past casinos _ And old hamburger stands
They’re all waving farewell — To the kid on the lamb
With their Jig sawed old arteries — So clogged and defiled
No open heart miracle — Is gonna turn 'em back wild
Past towns gone to bankers — Past fields gone to seed
All cut up and carved out — So divided by greed
And old grandfather catfish — With his whiskers so long
And his life in a struggle — Cuz the oxygen’s gone
Oh mom I miss you
I woke up and screamed
These American rivers — They poison my dreams
Colorado, Alleghany, Shenandoah, Susquehanny
And the Wabash and the Hudson and the brave Rio Grande
I was a kid there I was asleep in the sandy old water
Yeah old water