Dan Fogelberg - Forefathers lyrics

Forefathers
Dan Fogelberg

They came from Scandinavia, the land of midnight sun
And crossed the North Atlantic when this century was young
They would heard that in America every man was free
To live the way he chose to live & be who he could be

Some of them were farmers there & untiled the frozen soil
But all they got was poverty for all their earnest toil
They say one was a sailor who sailed the wide world round
Made home port, got drunk one night, walked off the pier & drowned

My mother was of Scottish blood; it is there that she was born
They brought her to America in 1924
They left behind the highlands & the heather-covered hills
And came to find America with broad expectant dreams & iron wills

My granddad worked the steel mills of central Illinois
His daughter was his jewel; his son was just his boy
For thirty yeahrs he worked the mills & stoked the coke-fed fires
And looked toward the day when he would at last turn 65 & could retire
#chorus#
And the sons become the fathers & their daughters will be wives
As the torch is passed from hand to hand
And we struggle through our lives
Though the generations wander, the lineage survives
And all of us, from dust to dust, we all become forefathers by & by
The woman & the man were wed just after the war
And they settled in this river town & three fine sons she bore
One became a lawyer & one fine pictures drew
And one became this lonely soul who sits here now
And sings this song to you
#chorus#
By & By; By & By

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