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"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own." ~Cesar Chavez

12 - let her go

©1999 Pat Humphries
Moving Forward Music, BMI
www.emmasrevolution.com

My brothers, my sisters, my father and my mother,
We were all held together with prayers and fishing line.
My brothers caught the fever, my mother nursed them dearly.
She held on 'til I was 4, in 1919 mamma died.

Let her go, let her go
As the tears and sorrow flow.
Restore this soul within me.
Free my heart and let her go.

We grew up hard and hungry beside the fields of plenty.
Our father made his wages laying brick and stone and steel.
We ate what we could carry, we cast our nets out early.
We cursed the northern truckers as they stole our life away.

I left my home and family when I was barely twenty.
To take a northern city and return a richer man
I crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains and then the Mason-Dixon.
I drove until I came unto the Great Lake Erie strand.

Let her go, don't let the past come between
The life I'm living now and the one that's in my dreams.

I went to work in Cleveland among the steel and concrete.
I watched the iron sunset as I pulled into the lot.
I headed for the diner where the truckers leave their orders.
I flirted with the waitress and I dreamed of going home.

Let her go, don't let the past come between
The life I'm living now and the one that's in my dreams.

I married in the city. I worked and raised a family
I saw my mother's image in my wife and daughter's eyes.
I felt the rage within me well up and burn right through me.
My love for them was true but I could only criticize.

I handed down my sadness like a tattered worn out suitcase.
I hated to admit it, but I never could move on.
My daughters held my anger. Their mother took it with her
In 1998 sje fell and finally made it home.

Let her go, let her go
As the tears and sorrow flow.
Restore this soul within me.
Free my heart and let her go.

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