Maura O'Connell with Nanci Griffith Trouble in The Fields

...Written by Nanci Griffith, the song "Trouble in the Fields" Powerful song featuring Maura performing and Nanci harmonizing. "Trouble In The Fields" Maura O'Connell and Nanci Griffith Baby I know that we've got trouble in the fields When the bankers swarm like locust out there turning away our yield The trains roll by our silos, silver in the rain They leave our pockets full of nothing But our dreams and the golden grain Have you seen the folks in line downtown at the station They're all buying their ticket out and talking the great depression Our parents had their hard times fifty years ago When they stood out in these empty fields in dust as deep as snow [Chorus:] And all this trouble in our fields If this rain can fall, these wounds can heal They'll never take our native soil But if we sell that new John Deere And then we'll work these crops with sweat and tears You'll be the mule I'll be the plow Come harvest time we'll work it out There's still a lotta love, here in these troubled fields There's a book up on the shelf about the dust bowl days And there's a little bit of you and a little bit of me In the photos on every page Now our children live in the city and they rest upon our shoulders They never want the rain to fall or the weather to get colder [Chorus] You'll be the mule I'll be the plow Come harvest time we'll work it out There's still a lotta love, here in these troubled fields Guthrie summarized the problems and life in the Dust Bowl with "dust sometimes gets so thick you can run your tractor and plows upside down. So dark you can't see a dime in your pocket, a shirt on your back, a meal on your table, or a dadgum thing. Only thing that is higher than that dust is your debts. Dust settles, but debts don't." · Folks referred to dust storms as "Oklahoma rain." Women would hold their pans up to a keyhole and let the wind and sand clean them. It was so dry for so long that frogs could not learn to swim and would drown when put in water. Some said, truthfully, that "the wind blew the farm away, but we didn't lose everything—we still got the mortgage."