An autobiographical view of the struggles of small-town agricultural life. As the ninth track on the album, it follows “Wild Women,” which is an autobiographical view of the struggles of life as a touring musician. Together, they form a two-song couplet about the life Price was born into as a child...
My sweet mother gets up so early in the morning
She turns on a stove and she makes a pot of coffee
My daddy filled his tractor up with diesel to plant the corn
And that's how it was on the day that I was born
Well the days, they went by and the bins filled up with grain
My mother's brother died on a motorcycle in the rain
The town got too big for its britches and the government, it came
And now it will never be the same
[Chorus]
No one moves away with no money
They just do what they can
To live in the heart of America
Getting by on their own two hands
You can pray to anybody's Jesus
And be a hardworking man
But at the end of the day, if the rain, it don't rain
We just do what we can
Some time back in '86 when big banks took the throne
They asked about every local farmer try to dry his own corn
But the men in the suits had a bigger plan than to let it be our own
When the crops came in that spring, they were blown
And Neil and Willie tried so hard and battles they have gone
But that was still long after the bigger war had been won
No one was there to save the wheat and the cattle at my home
They took every field my family owned
[Chorus]
No one moves away with no money
They just do what they can
To live in the heart of America
Getting by on their own two hands
You can pray to anybody's Jesus
And be a hardworking man
But at the end of the day, if the rain, it don't rain
If the bank, it don't break
We just do what we can
You just do what you can
Heart of America was written by Margo Price.
Heart of America was produced by Margo Price & Jeremy Ivey & Matt Ross-Spang & Alex Munoz.
Margo Price released Heart of America on Fri Oct 20 2017.