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They came from Scandinavia, the land of midnight sun |
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And crossed the North Atlantic when this century was young |
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They'd heard that in America every man was free |
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To live the way he chose to live and be who he could be |
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Some of them were farmers there and tilled the frozen soil |
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But all they got was poverty for all their earnest toil |
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They say one was a sailor who sailed the wide world round |
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Made home port, got drunk one night, walked off the pier and drowned |
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My mother was of Scottish blood, it's there that she was born |
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They brought her to America in 1924 |
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They left behind the highlands and the heather-covered hills |
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And came to find America with broad expectant dreams and iron wills |
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My granddad worked the steel mills of central Illinois |
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His daughter was his jewel, his son was just his boy |
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For thirty years he worked the mills and stoked the coke-fed fires |
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And looked toward the day when he'd at last turn 65 and could retire |
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(Chorus) |
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And the sons become the fathers and their daughters will be wives |
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As the torch is passed from hand to hand |
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And we struggle through our lives |
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Though the generations wander, the lineage survives |
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And all of us, from dust to dust, we all become forefathers by and by |
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The woman and the man were wed just after the war |
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And they settled in this river town and three fine sons she bore |
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One became a lawyer and one fine pictures drew |
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And one became this lonely soul who sits here now |
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And sings this song to you |
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(Chorus) |
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By and By By and By |