On a sign I saw hanging in the store today
It said in big bright red letters there's work in California
There's an honest job waiting for every good man
Nobody goes hungry you pick the peaches with your hand
'Cause the cotton don't grow here if it never rains
And the wind starts to blow here and it blows right through your brain
And carry away what the locust don't get
And the bills don't get paid and the bank takes the rest
Fight with the land till it hurts and you don't know what for
You might call me the salt of the earth but I call me dirt poor
And the dust coming over the plains doesn't care about me
See it fill up the sky that's all the convincing I need
When all I'll be leaving behind me is ashes and rust
Mama pack up the truck, California or bust
Say goodbye to the dust
And my granddad he came out here in 1881
My father he was born here and all of his sons
And he built this whole house with his two strong hands
When he died he had faith in hard work and good land
And then came the Great War and the army needed cloth
My dad said get in on the boom son, no time to be lost
And he took a new mortgage the American way
Then the wind came out of nowhere and it wouldn't go away
Fight with the land till it hurts and you don't know what for
You may call me the salt of the earth but I call me dirt poor
And the dust coming over the plains doesn't care about me
See it fill up the sky that's all the convincing I need
When all I'll be leaving behind me is ashes and rust
Mama pack up the truck California or bust
Say goodbye to the dust
And the dust keeps on coming
And the dust keeps on coming
And the dust keeps on coming