The Levee Falls

To where the levee itself done broke,

From the back of slavers’ cargo ship,

where you saw the old ones go overboard,

Carrying their final ticket

home,

Now if you want to live we’ll take you down,

to the ground we farming on the. Delta lands,

Where you sweat from sun to another sundown,

In the rain and mud ‘til the Flood rolls down,

It rolls so hard

That the rain is like tears

That you might be looking for a Cloud to swim,

Because that’ll be when there is no place to hide,

When the Levee breaks,

When the Flood comes down,

Ain’t nay warning come in the time that it do,

No chance to build a colored dam or roof,

Or climb up

the boss man’s look out post,

Ole Charley built them lakes and ponds for him,

To fill in just in case them levees go,

He just grinning to see if this precinct drowns,

When the River’s high and the levee’s gone,

And then he say he told you. before,

That y’all might drown if the Levee’s falls, ,

Yes, y’all might drown when the. cotton gets wet,

Cause the River will sometimes just move a bit,

Up to the place where the delta goes,

So best to sit still like ole Massa does,

Ain’t nothing you can do when

the levee falls.

-Albert Goins