Robbie Fulks - Papa Was A Steel-Headed Man lyrics

rate me

ust a simple kid from way out in the country

It's a mystery how he won Mama's hand

For as long as I remember she would tell me

Your papa, he's a steel-headed man

Every day at six a.m. he'd be up plowin'

Tryin' to squeeze a buck off our acre plot of land

But for all it's worth we never had much money

Papa was a steel-headed man

Chorus:

Never had no schoolin', he never left the farm

Never had a thing to show but the muscle in his arm

Yeah, the world was just a little more than he could understand

Papa was a steel-headed man

Well he used to tell us stories from the Bible

His homespun wisdom I still recall

It was only as a man I came to find out

He never knew much about anything at all

Couldn't read a book and keep his lips from movin'

Or add two and two without lookin' at his hands

And, laughter was a vice and Jews were evil

I declare he was a steel-headed man

Chorus

Well I had to she'd a tear for my poor daddy

This morning when we put him in the ground

And as I watched the dirt he worked fall o'er his coffin

I wondered where in such a life any larger meaning or purpose could be found

For he lived as quietly and ignorantly as an animal

And he died pathetic, penniless, and alone

And the worst thing is

Even if he'd been some kind of a genius

A hundred years from now, who would've known?

Chorus