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