Gold Rush Brides (MTV Unplugged)

[Spoken Intro]
While the young folks were having their good times, some of the mothers were giving birth to their babies. Three babies were born in our company that summer. My cousin Emily gave birth to a son in Utah, forty miles north of the Great Salt Lake one morning. But the next morning she travelled on 'til noon when a stop was made and another child was born, this time Susan Mollmeyer. And we gave the baby the name Alice Nevada.

[Verse 1]
Follow the typical signs their hand-painted lines
Down Prairie roads
Pass the lone church spire, pass the talking wire
From where to who knows
There's no way to divide the beauty of the sky
From the wild western plains
Where a man could drift in legendary myth
By roaming over spaces
The land was free and the price was right

[Chorus]
Dakota on the wall
Is a white-robed woman broad yet maidenly
Such power in her hand
As she hails the wagon man's family
I see Indians that crawl
Through this mural that recalls our history

[Verse 2]
Who were the homestead wives?
Who were the gold rush brides?
Does anybody know
Do their works survive their yellow fever lives
In the pages they wrote
The land was free yet it cost their lives

[Chorus]
In miners' lust for gold
A family's house was bought and sold piece by piece
A widow staked her claim
On a dollar and his name so painfully
In letters mailed back home
Her Eastern sisters, they would moan as they would read
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief

[Spoken Outro]
Thank you