Ballad of Copper Junction Lyrics

My father laid the trees down
He broke them with his hands
Last year he died and left me
nothing
But this frame I fill
A union card
And a pair of workman's hands

And I was brought up in the north of
here
In Copper Junction town
Where there ain't no longer
Any copper in the ground
Just the reservation land
Empty logging towns
Paper mills
And drawers of hand me downs

In 1964 I was seventeen years old
I got caught up in the draft
I did like I was told
And spent a pair of too long years
Too young to be so old
Well it don't make too much sense
Just to come in from the cold
But I guess I never did
I guess I never did

Back home it was the bottle
Back to work with my old man
But we didn't get on so good
It wasn't like we planned
And the last I saw of him
He's so drunk he couldn't stand
And that wagon's rolling empty

So I got myself cleaned up
I was married for a while
But that ring it just kept falling off
And sometimes I wonder why
But now it's years ago and faded
From whiskey and from rye
And I wonder if it matters

My father laid the trees down
He broke them with his hands
And now I'm just like him
I got nowhere left to stand
And that wagon's rolling empty
And I've got nothing but the frame I
fill
A union card
And a pair of workman's hands