"Pick The Wildwood Flower" --Johnny Cash

"Pick The Wildwood Flower"

Written by: J. Allen
Sung by: Johnny Cash


Those cottonfields were hot,
And that tractor never was my kind of livin'
And when I hit 16, I had my size and hit the road to freedom
And I'm glad I wasn't there to see my momma,
Cause she must have cried for hours.
I still hear her saying to me,
"Get your guitar and pick the 'Wildwood Flower'."

Now Memphis was big
And it was hard to find a job and so I didn't.
And it was easier to go back to the country
And it was more like livin'
Now I've been down every road
And I've stood on every porch where they were givin'
And if they had a dime or an hour, I would pick the 'Wildwood Flower'.

It's hard to turn around
And look back down the roads that I have traveled
Cause like a never-ending ball of twine,
My dreams have come unraveled.
Now as evening lays it's shower
Across the shoulders of my life, I find:
I couldn't tie my life together with guitar strings and a poet's heart-felt lines,
And I'm glad I wasn't there to see my momma
Cause she must have cried for hours.
I still hear her sayin' to me,
"Get your guitar and pick the 'Wildwood Flower'."



I LOVE this song. It was on the CASH: The Legend Box Set that I got a couple of months ago, this song really is amazing. That line, "I couldn't tie my life together with guitar strings and a poet's heart-felt lines" is indescribably perfect and amazing... When I first heard this song I almost had a heart-attack it was so good.. yeah and I'm 18.

Cash did not allow himself to be tied down by a genre of music, he transcended genres, he immortalized his voice and his music as simply his own... as simply, Johnny Cash.