Lyrics Ol' Doc Brown - Bill Anderson

Ol' Doc Brown

He was just and old country doctor in a small Georgia town
Fame and fortune had passed him by but we never saw him frown
As day by day in his kindly way he served us one and all
Many a patient forgot to pay although Doc’s fees were small
But ol' Doc Brown didn’t seem to mind in fact he didn’t even send out bills
His only ambition it seemed was to find sure cures for aches and ills
Why nearly half the folks in our home town
And yes I’m one of them too were ushered in by ol' Doc Brown
When we made our first debaut ah he needed his dimes
And there were times he’d receive a fee
But he would pass it on to some poor soul that he said needed it worse than he
So when hard times hit our town and drained each meager purse
The scanty income of Ol' Doc Brown just went from bad to worse
He had to sell his furniture why he couldn’t even pay his office rent
And so to an old dusty room over a liberty stable Ol' Doc Brown and his satchel
went
On the hitching post at the curb below to advertise his wares
He nailed up a little sign that read «Doc Brown has moved up stairs»
And there he kept on helping people get well and his heart was pure gold
But anyone with eyes could see that Doc was getting old
Then one day he didn’t even answer when they knocked upon his door
Ol' Doc Brown was lying down but his life was no more
They found him there in his old black suit but on his face was a smile of
contentment
But all the money they could find on him was a quarter and one ol' copper cent
So they opened up his ledger and what they saw gave their hearts a pull
Cause beside each debtor’s name Ol' Doc had written «Paid in full»
Well it looked like the potter’s field for Doc and that caused us some alarm
'Till some one remembered the family graveyard out on the Simmon’s farm
Ol' Doc had brought six of their kids into this world and Simmons was a
grateful cuss
He said «Doc been like one of the family so he can sleep with us.»
Ol' Doc Brown should have had a funeral fine enough for a king
It’s a ghastly joke that our town was broke and no one could give a thing
Except Jones the undertaker he did mighty well
He donated an old iron casket he’d never been able to sell
And the funeral procession well it wasn’t much for grace and pomp and style
But those wagonloads of mourners they stretched out for more than a mile
And we breathed a prayer as we laid him there to rest beneath the sod
This man who had earned the right to be on speaking terms with God
His grave was covered with flowers but not from the floral shop
Just roses and things from folks gardens and one or two dandelion tops
For times had hit our town hard and each man carried a load
So some just picked the wild flowers as they passed along the way
We wanted to give Doc a monument we kind of figured we owed him one
Cause he had made our town a better place for all the good he had done
But monuments cost money so we just did the best we could
And on his grave we just placed a monument of wood
We pulled up that old hitching post where Doc had nailed his sign
We painted it white and to all of us it surely did look fine
Now the rains and snow has washed away our white trimmings of paint
And there ain’t nothing left but Doc’s old sign and even that’s getting faint
And still when southern breezes and twinkling stars cross our little town
And pail moonlight shines through Georgia pines on the grave of Ol' Doc Brown
You can still see that old hitching post as if in answer to our prayers
Proudly telling the whole wide world Doc Brown has moved up stairs