Idaho Boy: Listen to My Songs

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• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

In 1910 David and Violet Jones, my great-grandparents, started a new life in the high desert town of Strevell, in southern Idaho. By 1970, the whole town was gone.

David Jones was a pioneer
He dragged a rail across the desert floor
He planted crops and he made a farm
Seems so long ago
Violet Jones was a farmer’s wife
Raised eight kids in the good old way
Sweat and blood is a farmer’s life
Seems so long ago

Waitin’ for the train
Waitin’ for the railroad
Waitin’ for the train
Waitin’ for our lives to begin

Someday this’ll be a town
Bright lights on the desert floor
Long streets filled with shiny cars
Seems so long ago
Even now I can hear the wind
So dry it’ll crack your bones
Broken glass on the desert floor
Seems so long ago

The farm failed after nine long years
Snakes and sagebrush are all that grows
The buildings fell and returned to the earth
Seems so long ago
I wonder why we placed our trust
In a land of rocks and dust
They laid the rails then they took them away
Seems so long ago