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Agawam Soil

by Jesse Peters

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about

Written after a long distance phone conversation with a farmer friend. Unfortunately, much of what we discussed has come to pass in the fields neighboring his farm. Free, but please contribute if you're able and willing (and dig the tune!)

lyrics

Agawam Soil

It's a pleasure to farm, he said
on the long distance line
as his thoughts coalesced
between the earthly and the divine

I'm makin' a stand, he said,
'cause it's hittin' me head-on this time
"I got a kid to think about now,
and the years of hard labor are showing up in my spine–

and the fields next door are commercially zoned
and they don't get it, they just own it,
and if they crowd me out, where'm I gonna go
the side of Fall Mountain's a mighty hard row

what am I gonna do? when there's no farmland there's no food

This here's Agawam Soil and it always puts up a good yield
If I grow my cover crops right
I'll never have a fallow field

and there ain't much land like this
not all land is made the same
The Indians knew, long before
Christ and Buddha were well-known names

but now they pull up in their pretty white cars
with their pretty white wives and their pretty white dogs
and "it's so quaint," and they buy what I sell
so they drive home and sign my ticket to hell
and what are they gonna do? when there's no farmland there's no food

What gives you the right to rape this land
with your bank account and your grasping hands
how can I make you understand
that once it's gone, it's gone

After smallpox had done their work
there weren't many let alive
the salmon and the deer for 500 years
until we white men arrived

and we built our towns and roads and rails
dams and canals, schools and jails
but do we ever wonder what we built them upon
or what we'll leave our kids after we have gone

and what're we gonna do? When there's no farmland there's no food.

credits

released February 12, 2013
JLP–guit. & vox

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Jesse Peters Town Of Rockingham, Vermont

Jesse Peters has been an integral part of the Southern VT music scene since moving back to the area in 2001. He has maintained a busy schedule performing and teaching, including two long-distance bicycle tours, Hub & Spoke in 2009 and tour350 in 2010. In tour350 Peters logged over 4000 miles, pulling his gear behind him in a trailer and playing gigs from coast to coast.
His style runs the gamut ... more

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