Orphan Of The Road

Johnny Cash was the first one to record this song, which was written while Feller was a staff writer at House Of Cash. Many years later, Rosanne Cash told Dick Feller that she had been so taken with "Orphan Of The Road", that she as a little kid had learned all the words from her father's recording. As an adult, Rosanne could still remember them.

Johnny Cash's version of this song is short one verse due to a secretarial mistake in the typing. All the verses are included in Feller's own recording of it, of course.

Lyric:
From a carny show and a rodeo that shared a three day stand
A cowboy met a fiery carny queen
In new spring nights amid the lights of the painted carny vans
They laughed and loved and shared the short lived dream
But the carny show and the rodeo both went their seperate ways
And the carny season bloomed and soon moved on
And I was born on a winther morn to the dark eyed carny queen
The too-late-son of something that was gone

The blacksheep child
Of a cowboy smile
From a seed the four winds sowed
The bastard son of ice and fire....
An orphan of the road

I was still a child when my mama died of a chill that closed her eyes
So I was left to grow up on my own
Without a name, too wild to tame and noone cared to try
So mostly I was mostly left alone
In dingy bars and cold box cars and hobo jungle camps
I joined the men who drift from town to town
The surgin' flood of restless blood that flowed inside my veins
Could never find the time to settle down

The blacksheep child
That grew up wild
From a seed the four winds sowed
The bastard son of ice and fire....
An orphan of the road

In the misty rain I caught the train that slowed down through the town
And I pulled myself in through the boxcar door
By passing light in the deep grey night I saw the still dark form
Of an old man lying sick upon the floor
The favoured brain on a midnight train began to drift in time
Back to the days when he rode the rodeo
A part in me in the heart of me stopped beating four times
As he talked of the carny girl he used to know
And he said I tried to find her once but they told me she'd died
That she'd left an only son behind
Well, I tried to find him but I never did.
Now I'd gladly go to hell if I could see him once before I die
I found a match and I quickly scratched it into flickering flame
Then I held it close and I gently raised his head
My mother, Sir, I said of her I have her same dark eyes
He smiled a cowboy smile and then was dead

The blacksheep child
That grew up wild
From a seed the four winds sowed
The bastard son of ice and fire....
An orphan of the road

Writer: Dick Feller  © Cyberphonic Publishing