Story Behind The Song

Written while riding the steam engine excursions down the Tennessee River from Knoxville.

Song Description

Story of an Appalachian woman who moves away and longs to return to the Tennessee River.

Lyrics

Banks of the Tennessee
Words and music by Daryl & Karen Yearwood

She was born on the banks of the great Tennessee
in a cabin with only one room.
She'd play while her daddy made whiskey to sell
and her mamma would work at her loom.
At home on the banks of the Tennessee.
At home on the banks of the Tennessee.

Red clay and bullfrogs were all she could see.
Blond hair blowin' in the wind.
The wings of a shypoke as he sailed through the mist by the
banks of the Tennessee.

She wed as a child and she bore him two sons.
Raised them in the prime of her life.
She gave up her soul to the man that she loved;
Committed to being his wife

She packed up her life when he took her away
to the mines where he dug out the coal.
She scraped and she struggled to make them a home but the
only place she ever felt whole was the Tennessee.
At home on the banks of the Tennessee.
At home on the banks of the Tennessee.

She was 93 years on the Earth that July
When her sons put her into the ground.
And a marker was set by her grave in the clay
and the stones were arranged on the mound.
At home on the banks of the Tennessee.
Home at last on the Tennessee.

Red clay and bullfrogs were all she could see.
Blond hair blowin' in the wind.
The wings of a shypoke as he sailed through the mist by the
banks of the Tennessee.
Ooo.