Working Girl Blues by Hazel Dickens Page B

heights to stand

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Cowboy Jim
    Sometimes when I went to Baltimore to visit my parents, at some point during the weekend my father would get out the Baptist songbooks and we would sing for a while. Often I would find a song that had interesting lyrics, especially the poetic ones, and I would ask him to teach me the melody. So he became more interested in teaching the tunes to me when he realized I was serious about learning the old songs. He would also try to remember other types of songs as well. On this particular day, probably in late 1963, he began to sing an old cowboy song, but due to a fading memory he could only recall a line or two. So he said, “You take it and make a song out of it, and give it that old lonesome sound.” He liked old-time music and was an old-time banjo picker in his younger days. So I took what little he sang and wrote “Cowboy Jim.” When I recorded it in the ’60s, I think he was surprised, but proud, that I actually wrote the song and that he had been part of it.
Cowboy Jim
    Out on the range I rode one day
    Looking for cowboy Jim
    There I spied the girl I loved
    Riding the range with him
    They were singing old songs that we used to sing
    And I knew she had done me wrong
    So I turned my old Pinto around again
    And I rode all night long
    Chorus:
    Won’t you come down, down in town pal
    Good times for you and me
    Forget your old gal you know she’s cold pal
    You know she’s been untrue
    One bright evening as the sun went down
    This cowboy was feeling low
    Sitting there talking to my partner Joe
    He said cowboy you sure look blue
    Repeat Chorus

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Little Lenaldo
    I wrote this song in 1981 after reading a true story in the newspaper about this grower down in Florida who hired a lot of migrant workers to work for him picking fruit. He also let children work long hours in the hot sun with very little pay. The article mentioned a little eleven-year-old boy named Lenaldo. Lenaldo got up at dawn and worked all day in the fields picking strawberries. The grower paid him five cents a box, but strawberries retailed for about eight times that much, and all the money went to the grower. The migrants barely had enough to eat or to pay their rent. That’s why the kid had to work. The parents needed the extra money to pay bills. Lenaldo never had leisure time like other kids to run and play. His days spent in the fields were long and exhausting. They got home at dusk, and the mother who had also been in the fields cooked supper. After that was over, it was time to get ready for bed and the next day. They had to be up and ready to go by dawn. After I read that article, it stayed on my mind until I finally had to write a song about it.
Little Lenaldo
    Little Lenaldo he’s only eleven years old
    He gets up at dawn to work in the fields all day
    For a mean boss man, who’ll abuse and never think twice
    He’s known for cheap labor and a heart that’s cold as ice
    Poor little Lenaldo, poor little ragged child
    Poor little child so young and so mild
    Oh what’s to become of him
    Little Lenaldo no time ever to run and play
    Work is barely finished ’till it’s time to start another day
    Grey-haired little children growing old before their time
    Their dreams lay dying they just rotted on the vine
    How can it be we stand and just look away
    Pretend not to see this man destroy a little child
    In the fields of plenty starving out his time
    But for chance or blessings
    He could be a child of yours or mine
    Poor little Lenaldo, poor little ragged child
    Poor little child so young and so mild
    Oh what’s to become of him
    Underpaid, underfed, he’s worked like a dog everyday
    Poor little child so young and so mild
    Oh what’s to become of him?

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Tomorrow’s Already Lost
    This song was written in the late ’60s for a sister, a very sweet and dear soul, who however always seemed to choose the wrong people to have a lasting