| Down in South Carolina in the piny woods
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| Where they make sweet turpentine;
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| There I first saw the light of day
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| Landin' on my mind.
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| Runnin' in the sunshine laughin',
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| Rollin' in the red dirt cryin'.
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| I said, hmmh,
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| Good God have mercy.
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| Canary warehouses, baby, I went to school;
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| I even lunched from the cans of our store;
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| Heatin' them up on a hot-bellied stove;
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| I used to keep out in the cold.
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| Sittin' around, you know, just to tell 'em lies about, ah,
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| What I’d be when I grew old.
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| I said, hmmh,
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| Good God have mercy.
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| Trestlin' the track down, mama, where the BNN
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| Used to haul;
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| Freight train caught daddy one day;
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| He took a long, long fall.
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| I’d only been taught to think on life;
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| Never thought on death at all.
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| I said, hmmh,
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| Good God have mercy.
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| Now every Sunday after church
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| There’d be a meeting on the ground.
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| Some good soul, she would always say
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| It’s a shame about Frieda Brown!
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| Mama and the ladies they formed a society;
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| They’d run Frieda out of town.
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| I said, hmmh,
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| Good God have mercy.
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| Daddy’s on the main line, mama wants him home,
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| Daddy’s on the main line, the kid' don’t need him home.
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| Good God have mercy. |