Leadbelly – Cotton Fields lyrics

Leadbelly – Cotton Fields lyrics

When I was a little bitty baby
My mama would rock me in the cradle
In them old cotton fields back home
It was down in Louisiana
Just a mile from Texarkana
In them old cotton fields back home

It may sound a little funny
But you didn't make very much money
In them old cotton fields back home
It may sound a little funny
But you didn't make very much money
In them old cotton fields back home

Oh when those cotton balls get rotten
You can't pick you very much cotton
In them old cotton fields back home

It was down in Louisiana
Just a mile from Texarkana
In them old cotton fields back home

I was over in Arkansas
People ask me what you come here for
In them old cotton fields back home
I was over in Arkansas
People ask me what you come here for
In them old cotton fields back home

Lyrics taken from /lyrics/l/leadbelly/cotton_fields.html

Songwriters: Huddie Ledbetter

Cotton Fields lyrics © Bluewater Music Corp.

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+ 4
Michael Walker 2015-07-25 22:22:09

My thought, listening to an old Leadbelly recording was that he may have been saying "just ten miles from Texarkana." He grew up north of Shreveport, near Mooringsport. Yeah, this would have been closer to 20-30 miles from the city of Texarkana, but really about 10 miles or so from where Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas come together. I believe he was actually saying the cotton fields where he was rocked were about ten miles from the Texas-Arkansas border, not ten miles (or a mile, as Credence sang it generations later) from the city of TXK.

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Unregistered 2012-08-26 22:56:23

For ted scott (above)- I didn't understand the line about a mile from texarkana either. I looked at it a little bit and discovered a possible explanation, that the original surveyors thought that the city of texarkana (texas arkansas louisiana) would be on the border of arkansas and louisiana, as opposed to where it ended up being 20 miles plus to the north. Who knows for sure. Certainly not me, but fun to consider the possibilities. What I did learn today for sure was the verses of the song I'd never heard before regarding not making much money and the other one about arkansas! Pretty cool.

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