Fogelberg Dan Forefathers Lyrics

Forefathers Lyrics

They came from Scandinavia
The land of midnight sun
And crossed the North
Atlantic
When this century was young
They'd heard that in
America
Every man was free
To live the way he chose to live
And be who
he could be.
Some of them were farmers there
And tilled the frozen
soil
But all they got was poverty
For all their earnest toil
They say
one was a sailor
Who sailed the wide world round
Made home port--got
drunk one night
Walked off the pier and drowned.
My mother was of
Scottish blood
It's there that she was born
They brought her to America
in 1924
They left behind the highlands
And the heather covered
hills
And came to find America
With broad, expectant dreams
And iron
wills.
My grandad worked the steel mills
Of central Illinois
His
daughter was his jewel
His son was just his boy
For thirty years he
worked the mills
And stoked the coke-fed fires
And looked toward the
day
When he'd at last turn 65
And could retire.
Chorus
And the sons
become the fathers
And the daughters will be wives
As the torch is passed
from hand to hand
And we struggle through our lives
Though the
generations wander
The lineage survives
And all of us
From dust to
dust
We all become forefathers
By and by.
The woman and the man were
wed
Just after the war
And they settled in this river town
And three
fine sons she bore
One became a lawyer
And one fine pictures drew
And
one became this lonely soul
Who sits here now
And sings this song to
you.
(Repeat chorus)