(started as a protest song and ended up more of a love of the land song)

I remember the day my granddad, took me by my hand.
Said "Son, come on and ride with me I wanna tell you about the land.
Tell ya ‘bout a time back then way before you came to be;
And I'll tell you ‘bout the farm back then, and what the land has meant to me."

So I jumped into his ol' pickup truck and we drove out ‘round the block.
For two miles square we drove around granddad talked and I listened a lot.
He told me ‘ bout how he pulled a plow ‘cross the prairie with a mule
And how he grew up loving the land even thought it can be cruel.

He said "Farms get bigger all the time,
And when they do it drives some farmers to leave their farms behind
The hourglass is running out of sand,
It's the aging of the countryside, the greying of the land.

Granddad told how the farms were small back when he was a little lad.
How they grew their food and milked cows, got what they needed from the land.
He told me there's a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the earth.
He said that's the way you gotta treat it son, ‘cause it was here before your birth.

He said "Son, I've seen lots of changes in the time I've had to farm,
Guys with money and power, sometimes do less good than they do harm
Now I know that it's tough to farm, but do the best that you can,
And I hope you'll always love the land, when you grow up and be a man."

He said...

Now we planted granddad late one spring, in the ground he loved so well
But his thoughts still grow inside my heart, I guess it's up to me now to tell.
. Give the land a chance to be, ya gotta treat it as if it's alive.
‘Cause it wants to keep on growing things, long after we all die.

Well granddad I have seen some changes too.
I see farms get bigger and then I think of you
I see the land get raped and cut down to it's bone,
And then granddad I am glad that you've gone home.