I was a baby growing by the Mississippi shore
Listening to riverboat's as their engines roar
Momma's in the kitchen crying in her tears
Cause daddy's run off with a Louisiana girl
Daddy's gone running from this boy's little world.
Left me playing in the Mississippi dirt.

Mississippi river so muddy and so wide
I promised I'd go find him on the Louisiana side
I'm growing every minute.
Running an hundred miles an hour
Momma can't control me now
She's gone to heaven sleeping under wildflowers.
I'm a Mississippi boy living on my own
Momma, I can't stop this wild urge to roam
Louisiana's calling me, now I'm all-alone.

Now that I've traveled to the other side
Looking for the man, who made my mama cry
Thinking I would I put him in the muddy ground
If I saw the man who made mom's world go around.
There was a chance at love I thought
To try to settle down, a Louisiana girl I loved
We had some good times and drank a ton of wine
O' Daddy. O'daddy What am I going to do?
The fast times have caught me, now I'm on the run.
Your Mississippi boy has the Louisiana blues.

They'll take me in the morning where corn grows tall
Way down in the bayous where the gators yell
To Angola prison just south of hell
For ten to twenty years.
Too many wrong turns and picking fights
To protect my cajun lady, a man lost his life.
Tonight I met a man from another cell
We talked into the night while riverboats wailed
I finally found the man who left my mom alone
Daddy, O daddy where did I go wrong

Once a Mississippi boy now a Louisiana man
Born a Mississippi boy I'll die a Louisiana man.

A lyrical poem/story taken from my book, American Lyricon: A Poet Sings of America.
. 2002 Joel L Young