Joan Baez - Plane Wreck at los Gatos (Deportee) lyrics

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DEPORTEES

(Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

words by Woody Guthrie, music by Martin Hoffman

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting

The oranges are packed in the creosote dumps

They're flying you back to the Mexico border

To pay all your money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria

You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane

All they will call you will be deportees

My father's own father, he waded that river

They took all the money he made in his life

My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees

They rode the big trucks till they lay down and die

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria

You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane

All they will call you will be deportees

The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon

A fireball of lightning, and it shook all the hills

Who are these comrades that died like the dry leaves

The radio tells me they're just deportees

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria

You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane

All they will call you will be deportees

We died in your hills and we died in your deserts

We died in your valleys we died on your plains

We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes

Both sides of the river we died just the same

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria

You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane

All they will call you will be deportees

Some of us are illegal, and others not wanted

Our work contract's out and we have to move on

But it's six hundred miles to that Mexican border

They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria

You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane

All they will call you will be deportees

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards

Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit

To fall like dry leaves and rot on the top soil

and be called by no name except "deportee"

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria

You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane

All they will call you will be deportees