Highway 29

We moved west of town bought some land and started clearing

November, 1944

I'd of rather turned a wrench, but the factory wasn't needing

A man who wasn't fit to fight a war

The choice I had was harder than the stones that they called soil

For a man with a crooked back and a calloused hand

I couldn't guess it then, all the changes that were coming

We all thought the war would never end

But the soldiers soon came home, turned the town into a city

I took a wife and all the land that we could buy

We couldn't keep up still, it's hard to beat the GI Bill

Soon the cranes were filling up our sky

Times always changing the way that we're living

The rules that we we've made to survive

From all that you own, to all you pass on

Till your name's on the stone when you die

Then Eisenhower said that the way to get ahead

Was to make a highway out of all these country lanes

So a man came to our place and said they'd planned the interstate

And split our fields with imminent domain

Still the times were good to me, but the good times they were brief

When the only son we had caught sick and died

So I laid him down to sleep, 'neath the shade of a pin oak tree,

Down the hill I heard the truckers engine whine

Times always changing the way that we're living

The rules that we we've made to survive

From all that you own, to all you pass on

Till your name's on the stone when you die

I'm an old man now these fields have long forgot the plow

There's no one left to keep this farm alive

The plot beneath the tree has three more stones and room for me

When I return to the dirt that shaped my life

Now they're always wanting more, turning two lanes into four

It gets closer to the graves every time

Will they ever be forgiven? They claim the land is for the living

They'll dig 'em up for Highway 29

Times always changing the way that we're living

The rules that we we've made to survive

From all that you own, to all you pass on

Till your name's on the stone when you die