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    Scott Cook

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    1. Go On, Ray

    From the recording Moonlit Rambles (2011)

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    Go On, Ray

    Scott Cook
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    Lyrics

    Ray, I got the news in a motel room that rainy night
    And I wondered just what I'd been waiting for
    Wondered if I could write you a song you'd like
    And why I never wrote you one before
    You never were the kind to talk about your heart
    But you never let us doubt how much you cared
    Never liked to dress up, never tried to sound smart
    Never had much patience for folks who put on airs
    Never learned to swim, never learned to dance
    Never left the continent, through you drove its whole expanse
    While the country lost its way, somehow you stayed true
    A boy from Levering, Michigan, 1922

    Takes a certain kind of man to farm for fifty years
    While the cost of living and corporate profits soar
    He just pushed on, bull-headed, we never saw his tears
    They don't make quite that kind of man no more
    Opened two hardware stores, made furniture by hand
    Carried mail while Grandma taught the kids in town
    When the money got tighter he had to sell off some land
    And when the big stores came, he had to close one of his down
    He watched the land he loved turn suspicious and cold
    Saw the countryside carved up by walls
    But he never bought the lies, never prejudged a soul
    Said don't the good book say “whosoever calls”?

    So go on, Ray, we're coming after you
    You passed through well, and that's all a man can do
    My dad's following, in time I'm going too
    Go on, Ray, we're coming after you

    He was an artist with wood and jerry-rigging things
    Hands gnarled from eighty years of hard use
    I saw him hit himself with a hammer, and he didn't even wince
    Somehow nine out of ten fingers made it through
    Had the kind of smarts you might call old-fashioned
    Built a hydro plant himself by trial and error
    He loved tractor shows, music boxes, clockworks and gadgets
    Built us a merry-go-round with a washing machine motor
    When he couldn't walk too far, it really slowed him down
    But he loved his work too much to stop
    He'd still plant a little crop in that old Michigan ground
    And ride his lawn tractor out to the wood shop

    So go on, Ray, we're coming after you
    You passed through well, and that's all a man can do
    My dad's following, in time I'm going too
    Go on, Ray, we're coming after you

    Last time I saw him he was leaving for South Dakota
    Taking a vanload of clothes on his own dime
    To a poor kids' school on the land of the Lakota
    I think he knew that trip would be his last time
    No one knows what it's like to lay this body down
    Though some folks say that they do
    I just know he went a long way, and came back around
    And there's a lot of people better off for him passing through
    Ray, they bought you a new chair just before you died
    We hoped you'd have a few more years at home
    But then you had to take another ambulance ride
    And I reckon you just didn't want to go

    Go on, Ray, we're coming after you
    You passed through well, and that's all a man can do
    My dad's following, in time I'm going too
    Go on, Ray, we're coming after you

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