Text: Jerry Jeff Walker. My Old Man.

My old man had a rounder soul
He'd hear an ol' freight train and he'd have to go
Said he'd been blessed with a gypsy bone
That's the reason guess that he'd been cursed to roam
He came to town back 'fore the war
He didn't even know what it was he was lookin' for

He carried a tattered bag for his violin
Full of lots of songs of the places he had been
He talked real easy and he smiled and waved
He could pass along to you when his fiddle played
He's makin' people drop their cares and woes
To hum out loud the tunes that his fiddle bowed

'Til people there began to join that sound
And ev'ryone in town was laughin' and singin,' dancin' 'round
Like the Fiddler's tunes we all there heard that night
As if some dream said that all the world is right

The Fiddler's eye, it caught a lady there
She had that rollin,' flowin', golden kind of hair
He played for her as if she danced alone
He played his favorite songs, the ones he called his own
She alone was dancin' in the room
The only thing left movin' to the Fiddler's tune

He played until she was the last to go
He stopped and packed his case, said he'd take her home
And all the nights that passed a child was born
And all the years that passed, their love would keep them warm
And all their lives they shared, the dream come true
All because she danced so well, the Fiddler's tune

That the train next mornin', she blew a lonesome sound
As if she sang the blues of what she took from town
And all that I recall that was said when I was young
There's no one else could play or sing the songs he sung