Tennessee Gold

Where the Cumberland winds through the hollers and pines,
And the mockingbird calls in the warm southern shine,
There lies a land carved in rhythm and rhyme
O, sing me the ballad of Tennessee time.

The old Mississippi rolls proud in the west,
Cradling the soil where the cotton grew best.
While Memphis still hums with that Beale Street refrain,
Where the blues met the Delta and danced with the rain.

O, Tennessee, my mountain and plain,
Your rivers run wild through joy and through pain.
With fiddle and firelight and kinfolk so true,
I carry your heart in the red, white, and blue.

In the east rise the Smokies, mist-veiled and grand,
Guarding the tales of this hardscrabble land.
Moonshiners once ran through the laurel and ridge,
With revenuers waiting ‘neath Raven’s Fork Bridge.

From Roan to Clingmans, the ridgelines still speak,
Of black bears and ballads and preachers who’d preach.
And grandmas with wisdom in wrinkled old hands,
Who made cornbread from scratch and gave life to the land.

O, Tennessee, my mountain and plain,
Your rivers run wild through joy and through pain.
With fiddle and firelight and kinfolk so true,
I carry your heart in the red, white, and blue.

In Nashville, they strum where the stars light the stage,
A Grand Ole Opry of heartache and age.
The fiddle cries sweet for the ones gone too soon,
While the banjo keeps time with the rise of the moon.

And down in the soil of old Shiloh’s red clay,
Lie echoes of brothers who met on that day.
Gray and blue mingled, both stubborn and proud,
As the whippoorwills sang through the gunsmoke and shroud.

O, Tennessee, my mountain and plain,
Your rivers run wild through joy and through pain.
With fiddle and firelight and kinfolk so true,
I carry your heart in the red, white, and blue.

Here we raise barns and voices and children with care,
Say grace before supper and bows when we prayer.
We argue with kin but defend them with might,
And we welcome a stranger if they act just right.

There’s pride in a tractor and truth in a hymn,
And a porch swing is where most good stories begin.
Our roots grow deep like the dogwood in spring,
And honour’s not an old-fashioned thing.

O, Tennessee, my mountain and plain,
Your rivers run wild through joy and through pain.
With fiddle and firelight and kinfolk so true,
I carry your heart in the red, white, and blue.

So here’s to the thunder of Knoxville at play,
To Memphis fried catfish and Nashville café.
To Jack in his barrel and Elvis in gold,
To the state fair in Jackson where memories hold.

Let others chase fortune on faraway seas
I’ve found my own riches in red Tennessee.
Where the soul of a place is the soul of its kin,
And every goodbye feels like home once again.

O, Tennessee, my mountain and plain,
Your rivers run wild through joy and through pain.
With fiddle and firelight and kinfolk so true,
I carry your heart in the red, white, and blue.