Live Oak

There's a man who walks beside me, he is who I used to be

And I wonder if she sees him and confuses him with me

And I wonder who she's pining for on nights I'm not around

Could it be the man who did the things I'm living down?

I was rougher than the timber shipping out of Fond du Lac

When I headed south at seventeen, the sheriff on my back

I'd never held a lover in my arms or in my gaze

So I found another victim every couple days

But the night I fell in love with her, I made my weakness known

To the fighters and the farmers digging dusty fields alone

The jealous innuendos of the lonely-hearted men

Let me know what kind of country I was sleeping in

Well, you couldn't stay a loner on the plains before the war

When my neighbors took to slightin' me, I had to ask, "What for?"

Rumors of my wickedness had reached our little town

Soon she'd heard about the boys I used to hang around

We'd robbed a Great Lakes freighter, killed a couple men or more

When I told her, her eyes flickered like the sharp steel of a sword

All the things that she'd suspected, I'd expected her to fear

Was the truth that drew her to me when I landed here

There's a man who walks beside me, he is who I used to be

And I wonder if she sees him and confuses him with me

And I wonder who she's pining for on nights I'm not around

Could it be the man who did the things I'm living down?

Well, I carved a cross from live oak and her box from short-leaf pine

And buried her so deep, she'd touch the water table line

And picked up what I needed and I headed south again

To myself, I wondered, would I ever find another friend?

There's a man who walks beside her, he is who I used to be

And I wonder if she sees him and confuses him with me