Hometown Refugee
© 2018 Janice and Bud Merritt
Janice: vocals
Peter Fulham: guitar
Bud: RealTracks, RealDrums, arrangment, mix and mastering
you can’t go back girl it’s a dead end
don’t know why the hell I ever tried
maybe I dreamed of the invitation
or it’s another memory that lied
should’ve headed on never slowed down
now I’m a refugee in my home town
my old friends have become strangers
they’ve grown cold, dark, bitter
i see them circling their wagons
trolling me to pull that trigger
should’ve headed on never slowed down
now I’m a refugee in my home town
a courthouse clock with the wrong time
store windows reflect ghosts of past
parking meters stand like rusty sentinels
nothing lasts nothing lasts
should’ve headed on never slowed down
now I’m a refugee in my home town
© 2018 Janice and Bud Merritt
Janice: vocals
Peter Fulham: guitar
Bud: RealTracks, RealDrums, arrangment, mix and mastering
you can’t go back girl it’s a dead end
don’t know why the hell I ever tried
maybe I dreamed of the invitation
or it’s another memory that lied
should’ve headed on never slowed down
now I’m a refugee in my home town
my old friends have become strangers
they’ve grown cold, dark, bitter
i see them circling their wagons
trolling me to pull that trigger
should’ve headed on never slowed down
now I’m a refugee in my home town
a courthouse clock with the wrong time
store windows reflect ghosts of past
parking meters stand like rusty sentinels
nothing lasts nothing lasts
should’ve headed on never slowed down
now I’m a refugee in my home town
© 2019 Bud Merritt & floyd jane / All Rights Reserved
Janice Merritt: lead vocal
floyd jane: harmony vocal, arrangement and mix counsel
Bud Merritt: RealTracks, RealDrums, mix and mastering
OUR GOOD OLD DAYS
They worked dawn to dusk in a dark underground
digging up shiny black coal, coughing up black lung
paying the price to keep a young america's lights on
then passing that life of misery on to their sons
we call em the good ol' days
but think of what they might say
thank god you didn't live in our good old days
considered little more than their husband's property
they bore the next generation
they raised and fed and taught and tended who we would become
without a vote without a voice without veneration
Chorus
children at 8 and 9 toiling 16 hour days
robbed of any childhood working the mills
No school, no play, no free day trapped in a man made hell
just so the family could eat and try to pay the bills
Chorus
sharecroppers working land they’d never own
back breaking labor broken only by the dinner bell
After each year's accounting sinking deeper into debt
they came seeking haven, just found hell
Chorus
No amount of money, no position could protect them
for the lack of a shot or want of a pill
the whole family taken by yellow fever
now a cluster of headstones on a hill
Chorus
what do you think our ghosts will say
about living in our good old days
Janice Merritt: lead vocal
floyd jane: harmony vocal, arrangement and mix counsel
Bud Merritt: RealTracks, RealDrums, mix and mastering
OUR GOOD OLD DAYS
They worked dawn to dusk in a dark underground
digging up shiny black coal, coughing up black lung
paying the price to keep a young america's lights on
then passing that life of misery on to their sons
we call em the good ol' days
but think of what they might say
thank god you didn't live in our good old days
considered little more than their husband's property
they bore the next generation
they raised and fed and taught and tended who we would become
without a vote without a voice without veneration
Chorus
children at 8 and 9 toiling 16 hour days
robbed of any childhood working the mills
No school, no play, no free day trapped in a man made hell
just so the family could eat and try to pay the bills
Chorus
sharecroppers working land they’d never own
back breaking labor broken only by the dinner bell
After each year's accounting sinking deeper into debt
they came seeking haven, just found hell
Chorus
No amount of money, no position could protect them
for the lack of a shot or want of a pill
the whole family taken by yellow fever
now a cluster of headstones on a hill
Chorus
what do you think our ghosts will say
about living in our good old days