Hank Snow Old Doc Brown Lyrics

Old Doc Brown Lyrics

(Spoken)

He was just an old country doctor

In a little Kentucky
town

Fame and fortune had passed him by

But we never saw him
frown

As day by day in his kindly way

He served us one and all

Many a patient forgot to pay

Altho' doc's fees were small



But Old Doc Brown didn't seem to mind

He didn't even send out bills

His only ambition was to find

It seems, sure cures for aches and
ills

Why nearly half the folks in my home town

Yes, I'm one of them
too

Were ushered in by Old Doc Brown

When we made our first
debut



Tho' he needed his dimes and there were times

That
he'd receive a fee

He'd pass it on to some poor soul

That needed it
worse than he

But when the depression hit our town

And drained each
meager purse

The scanty income of Old Doc Brown

Just went from bad
to worse



He had to sell all of his furniture

Why, he
couldn't even pay his office rent

So to a dusty room over a Livery
stable

Doc Brown and his practice went

On the hitchin' post at the
curb below

To advertise his wares

He nailed a little sign that
read

'Doc Brown has moved upstairs'



There he kept on helpin'
folks get well

And his heart was just pure gold

But anyone with eyes
could see

That Doc was gettin' old

And then one day he didn't even
answer

When they knocked upon his door

Old Doc Brown was a-lyin'
down

But his soul - was no more



They found him there in an
old black suit

And on his face was a smile of content

But all the
money they could find on him

Was a quarter and a copper cent

So
they opened up his ledger

And what they saw gave their hearts a pull

Beside each debtor's name

Old Doc had (*writ) these words, 'Paid in
full'



It looked like the potter's field for Doc

That caused
us some alarm

'Til someone 'membered the family graveyard

Out on
the Simmons farm

Old doc had brought six of their kids

And Simmons
was a grateful cuss

He said, Doc's been like one of the family

So,
you can let him sleep with us



Old Doc should have had a
funeral

Fine enough for a king

It's a ghastly joke that our town
was broke

And no one could give a thing

'Cept Jones, the
undertaker

He did mighty well

Donatin' an old iron casket

That he'd never been able to sell



And the funeral procession, it
wasn't much

For grace and pomp and style

But those wagon loads of
mourners

They stretched out for more than a mile

And we breathed a
prayer as we laid him there

To rest beneath the sod

This man who'd
earned the right

To be on speaking terms with God



His grave
was covered with flowers

But not from the floral shops

Just roses
and things from folks' garden

And one or two dandelion pots

For the
depression had hit our little town hard

And each man carried a load

So some just picked the wildflowers

As they passed along the road



We wanted to give him a monument

Kinda figured we owed him
one

'Cause he'd made our town a better place

For all the good he'd
done

But monuments cost money

So, we did the best we could

And on his grave we gently placed

A monument - of wood



We
pulled up that old hitchin' post

Where Doc had nailed his sign

And
we painted it white and to all of us

It certainly did look fine

Now
the rains and snow has washed away

Our white trimmings of paint

And
there ain't nothin' left but Doc's own sign

And that is gettin' faint



Still, when southern breezes and flickering stars

Caress our
sleeping town

And the pale moon shines through Kentucky pines

On
the grave of Old Doc Brown

You can still see that old hitchin' post

As if an answer to our prayers

Mutely telling the whole wide world

Doc Brown has moved up stairs