California Cottonfields

Merle Haggard

Written by Dallas Frazier

Key of G · Chords: I II IV V VII

Verse 1

G                  D7               F         C
My drifting memory goes back to the spring of '43
     G                             D7
When I was just a child in momma's arms
   G                D7                  F                C
My daddy plowed the ground and promised someday we would leave
     G                  D7       G
This run-down mortgaged Oklahoma farm

Verse 2

D7                              C            G
Then one night I heard my daddy saying to my momma
A7                                D7
That he'd finally saved enough to go
G              D7                   F          C
California was his dream a paradise for he had seen
G           D7                      G
Pictures in magazines that told him so

Verse 3

G          D7 C
California Cottonfields
      C                D7                    C           G
Where labor camps were filled with weary men with broken dreams
           D7 C
California Cottonfields
   C                  D7         G
As close to wealth as daddy ever came

Verse 4

                     D7              F    C
Nearly everything we had was sold or left behind
     G                                      D7
From my daddy's plow to the soup that momma canned
     G                 D7                       F         C
Some folks came to say farewell or see what all we had to sell
     G                     D7      G
Some just came to shake my daddy's hand

Verse 5

D7                               C          G
That model A was loaded down and California bound
A7                               D7
A change of luck was just 4 days away
G                   D7              F            C
But the only change that I remember seeing in my daddy
G                      D7               G
Was when his dark hair turned to silver gray

Verse 2

D7                              C            G
Then one night I heard my daddy saying to my momma
A7                                D7
That he'd finally saved enough to go
G              D7                   F          C
California was his dream a paradise for he had seen
G           D7                      G
Pictures in magazines that told him so