The Ballad of the Delta Lady

By Tom Farley

On sale at the VWC Bookstore, www.iSOUND.com/tom_farley , The Tom Farley CD Sales Page and at Live Performances

They're puttin' the Delta Lady on the auction block tonight

Her paddlewheels no more to turn, no dancehall city lights

And the more that I remember, the more it don't seem right

To put the Cajun Delta Lady on the auction block tonight

It's been come nigh on eighty years since the Lady was introduced

To a wide-eyed Mississippi boy in the romance of his youth

From the moment that I saw her at the dock by Port a' Prince

Like a man who'd found his only woman I've loved her ever since

Many times I held her so closely I could feel

The way that she responded to the touching of her wheel

So beautiful a figure, like none that's ever been

It's sad to think I'll never know her warm embrace again

We passed our days by countin' one sunset at a time

And there wasn't a dock on the whole damn river that never seen her line

Just a passing generation is all we've come to be

And the swift and mighty Delta Lady becomes a memory

They're puttin' the Delta Lady on the auction block tonight

Her paddlewheels no more to turn, no dancehall city lights

And the more that I remember, the more it don't seem right

To put the Cajun Delta Lady on the auction block tonight

© 1982 Alum Ridge Music (ASCAP)