Story Behind The Song

Last year, my uncle passed. He was 92, and left my mother as the final member of the first homesteading family in Spring Butte township, just north of Cedar Creek. Mine was the last generation in the township to be born and grow up there, and the legacy of the place inhabits every timber, every hoofprint, every wagon track. Drought and recession drove us all from our home. Now the place lies, like my grandpa and uncles, asleep and awaiting resurrection.

Song Description

Grandpa homesteaded there, first in the county...my mother grew up there; so did I. But those days are gone forever...

Lyrics

'Bout a mile west
Of the gravel
12 mile from town
There's a homestead
On a hillside
Tumblin' down
And broomgrass grows in the kitchen
Where my mother played
Now she's the last to survive

On the far side, of the Cedar
With Spring Butte beside

And our young lives
They were fine there
When nature was kind
With never a thought
Of departing
From the family line
And we thought we were holy
Set apart from those towns
Before the unwinding tides

Out on the far side, of the Cedar
The spring has run dry

The big cottonwoods
Have died there
Silver tombstones to time
And now the barnyard is silent
And empty
The herd left no sign
And way up on the hill
A lone whipporwill
Is crying

Out on the far side of the Cedar
With Spring Butte in sight
On the far side of the Cedar
With Spring Butte beside.

(long version bridge:
But then the rain stopped, the train stopped, and the grain stopped
But nothin' stopped time
All of the brothers were evicted by God
And the fathers resigned.
So I took a vow, to come back somehow
If you'd give me a sign
Lord I know that your willin', if that creek does rise.)