Farmhand Blues

I live wild up country
A yonder mountain man
Got no thing electric
Eatin’ straight off the land
Where the cold wind blows
I could get froze to death

When winter comes on strong
I take my stack of songs
Downtown

I go Downtown
It’s kinda hard to crack
Downtown
But the girls ain’t hard to track

There Downtown

Where the music sounds so fine
And I can show off some of mine
There Downtown

Those days back in the swamp
I couldn’t lay down
Things were swimming topwater
Slithered right along the ground
And it was hot man
Fry an egg in its shell

I had a bamboo rod
But those worms looked mighty odd

I didn’t stick around

So I headed Downtown
There ain’t no place to stay
Downtown
But man they sure can play
Come sundown
Lots of folks would come around

Their music sounds so fine
And I can show off some of mine
Downtown

When I got broke
I had to work a wretched field
On a drill machine
Man that land will never heal

It tried to take my soul

But when we got on back to town
We’d get mighty whiskey bound
Till the jailer come around

Yeah I go Downtown
Howling with the hounds
Downtown
Get to lyin’on the ground

There Downtown
Yeah Downtown

Where the food eats pretty good
And floors are level wood

There downtown.

When I made enough
I’d pack it all in
Head back to yonder mountains
Get back home once again

Where the north wind blows
It feels good you gotta know

Where the cold water flows
That’s where I want to go
Take the high ground

©2025 Randy Lee Riviere and Tom Hambridge

Ever get your head kicked?
Ever felt that night stick?
Ever take your best shot
In the greasy halls of a bike shop?
Ever work a nail jammer?
Ever throw a rock hammer?
Ever need a piss jar
Handcuffed in the back seat of a cop car?

I feel a bender comin’ down
Dark cloud been hanging round
Sometimes the devil don’t make a sound
Oh I feel a bender coming round

Ever ride the big road
With a too heavy truckload
Ever run those scales yo
With no lights yo
Lookin’ for a Motel 6,
might be a 12, or a 24

I feel a bender comin’ down
Dark cloud been hanging round
Sometimes the devil don’t make
a sound
Oh I feel a bender coming round

When today is only Monday
Just a couple hump days to Friday
You won’t find me sober
When this gut punch week is over

It just ain’t sensible
When I’m dispensable

I feel a bender comin’ down
Dark cloud been hanging round
Sometimes the devil don’t make
a sound
Oh I feel a bender coming round

I feel a bender comin’ down
Dark cloud been hanging round
Sometimes the devil don’t make
a sound
Oh I feel a bender coming round

©2025 Randy Lee Riviere and Tom Hambridge

I work all day
In the California sun
The mosquitos are bad
And not a lot of fun
Oh what’s to do?
I’m a farm working man

For this small potato paycheck
I got the farm hand blues

At night the boys come down
For a country jam
We sound pretty good
Do the best we can

Oh what’s to do?
We’re farm working men

For this small potato paycheck
I got the farm hand blues

I’m hunchback permanent
My hands are hard cracked
The sun is a monster
That never turns back
Except at night
That’s a science fact

For this small potato paycheck
I got the farm hand blues

I got mud in my ears
In my shorts in fact
If I work any longer
I’m gonna get a heart attack

Oh what’s to do?
I’m a farm working man

For this small potato paycheck
I got the farm hand blues

For this small potato paycheck
I got the farm hand blues

©2024 Randy Lee Riviere and Tom Hambridge

I been out here on the road
With my guitar in tow
Writing as we go
With only road songs to show
When they get me home
Where I’ll finally be alone
I’m goin’ bird watchin’

They got colors red and blue
Orange and white too
But ain’t showin’ off for you
There’s many more than a few

When they get me home
Where I’ll finally be alone
I’m goin’ bird watchin’

I’m out here in the yard
September’s coming hard
They should be here any day
Hope they stop along their way

When they get me home
Where I’ll finally be alone
I’m goin’ bird watchin’

I planted trees along the road
Shrubs where they should go
Grass I never mow
Then sit back and watch the show

Writing country songs
That I thought were long gone
I’m goin’ bird watchin’

When they get me home
Where I’ll finally be alone
I’m goin’ bird watchin’

When they get me home
Where I’ll finally be alone
I’m goin’ bird watchin’

©2024 Randy Lee Riviere and Tom Hambridge

She’s so fine
A friend of mine
She’s so fine
A good friend of mine
Down Alabama
She so kind
Let my head unwind
She’s so kind
Make my head unwind
Down Alabama

She got her way
Take my breath away
Short instrumental

She’s the one
Took my heart undone
Face full of dirt
Out in the morning sun
Down Alabama

With a mason jar
She go far
With a mason jar
Her farm’s an evening star
Down Alabama

She got her way
Take my breath away

You make fun
But you got none
You think
They still got 12 pound guns?
Down Alabama

She got her way
Take my breath away

She’s so fine
I can take my time
She’s so kind
Let my head unwind

She’s so fine
A good friend of mine
She’s so fine
Let my head unwind

She’s the one
Who took my heart undone
Face full of dirt
Out in the morning

Alabama’s my home
Alabama’s my home
Alabama’s my home
Oh, Alabama

Alabama’s my home
Alabama’s my home
Alabama’s my home

Take me home

©2024 Randy Lee Riviere

Out along Morgan Run
We took an old road ‘till it was done
Grandma and Grandpa were there
Making milk with love and care
The blades of grass they knew so well
Shades of grain and what that’d tell
A family that stood straight and fell
Everyone wished them well
Everybody wished then well

Down on Linden’s Farm
Under old oaks with Crooked arms
There was a man and a woman there
Who cared about everything everywhere

When I was young I spent summers there
Running sprinklers in the dry air
‘Cause the rain almost never came
In those days of hope and pain

At night there were Pinochle games
Lots of food with Old Country names
You couldn’t spell them but they ate all the same
There was always more from
where it came
From down Grandma’s hall of fame

Down on Linden’s Farm
Under old oaks with Crooked arms
There was a man and a woman there
Who cared about everything everywhere

There were chickens and Jersey cows
A big tractor and 4 bottom plough
When the wind blew hard at night
We’d tell stories by candlelight
Scary stories in the dead of night

Down on Linden’s Farm
Under old oaks with Crooked arms
There was a man and a woman there
Who cared about everything everywhere

Down on Linden’s Farm
Under old oaks with Crooked arms
There was a man and a woman there
Who cared about everything everywhere

©2022 Randy Lee Riviere

She left me cold
Got no warning
I was playing the blues
All night until the morning
And then watched cartoons
With the rooster crowing
Afternoons
Were for horseshoe throwing

Now I got a propane heater
From my new next door neighbor
He was a weeknight meeting leader
Turned out to be a wicked wife beater

It was just another shitty dream
I don’t know
Don’t know what it means
But you were there

She stopped by late one evening
Really scared, of all those men misbehaving
You know she said so
That’s what she said
Now I got a wild lady in my head

She has prison tats I don’t really get
And metal things
I’m not liking one bit
But in the moonlight they’re
quite a sight
Now I’m feeling everything will be alright

It was just another shitty dream
I don’t know
Don’t know what it means
But you were there

It was just another shitty dream
I don’t know
Don’t know what it means
But you were there

©2025 Randy Lee Riviere and Tom Hambridge

Can you see them in the sun?
Here they all come
Down from the trees
Want to take your dream
Baby, grab my shotgun

Do you hear them howl
They coming now
You best get back of that log
They foamed up snarling dogs

They don’t get outrun

Did you hear any thunder?
From the table that they’re under?
I didn’t neither

Can you tell me what they’ve done
Nothing at all

You hear that rumble?
Sounds like concrete tumble
You think it’s just Zombies?
You know, like in those movies

If we had just one word
It would be cynical
If we had just word
It would be cynical

©2025 Randy Lee Riviere

If I were a King
With fancy horses, castles and means
Need for nothing, own everything
If I were King
If I got to be King
Would my friends still drop by to sing?
Use metal cans old guitars with strings
Play broken bars for whiskey and dream
About a river with a house and a ring
For a Georgia girl …

And my southern heart would carry me

If I were King
Would I still have my Georgia dream?
My family, all the Morgan’s and Lee’s
Or would they embarrass me?
Or would they just embarrass me?

I’d be loved by everyone
Always right, the enlightened son
But hold them back just for fun
Use fear like a loaded gun …

Hold their lives
Mold their lives

Take their lives undone

If I were King
Would I still have my Georgia dream?
My family, all the Morgan’s and Lee’s
Or would they embarrass me?
Or would they just embarrass me?

Would I turn my back if I were King
Would I turn my back if I were King

Would I turn my back if I were King
Would I turn my back if I were King

If I were king
Keep my Georgia dream
Be the rock that they need
If I were King

©2025 Randy Lee Riviere and Tom Hambridge

Love’s got its grip on me
It’s down in this dirt
And on my hands
That never wash free
I’ve have these thoughts
That I got handed to me
Now these feet
Are moving quick
This is heaven you see

Don’t you know
Can’t you see
Mother Lee?
This life that you give
Ain’t for me

Don’t you know
Can’t you see
Mother Lee
All this blood
In our lives
Is running free

Fire burns in hell
On Sunday they say
If there’s heaven on earth
It ain’t here
On this day

I got this girl
Back home
Waiting on me
Where chains
Tether our lives
To heartbreak
And pain

Don’t you know
Can’t you see
Mother Lee?
This life that you give
Ain’t for me

Don’t you know
Can’t you see
Mother Lee
All this blood
In our lives
Is running free

Don’t you know
Can’t you see
Mother Lee?
This life that you give
Ain’t for me

Don’t you know
Can’t you see
Mother Lee
All this blood
In our lives
Is running free

©2022 Randy Lee Riviere

I was sick
And man, it was cold
It was December of 1980
Waiting for my turn to unload
In a stark, strange land
Momma, your baby got old
I caught a bug
Out on a Tucson road
She wore a red sombrero
But was white as newborn snow
There she met me a devil
Boy, you don’t want to know

I turned on the radio
Heard they shot my brother down
And he was my father
Always … always around
He cared for my heart
When I was up and all the way down

It was an old, greasy truck stop
They called the Triple T
It was a desert oasis
So hot, so hot you couldn’t see
There I met an angel
As sweet as sweet as can possibly be

Me and my friends would sing
Knew all his words by heart
My brother changed the world
Like a sting … a lightning spark …

Then a cold bullet took him
Just a block from Central Park

Then a cold bullet took him
Just a block from Central Park

©2025 Randy Lee Riviere and Tom Hambridge

You ain’t no loving woman
For a loving man
But you shine like the moonlight
To those poor souls in your hands
But your touch is so sweet
To a lonesome man

You ain’t no deserving woman
For the love of a loving man
You just drag them down in misery
Make them break, that’s you plan

But your touch is so sweet
To a lonesome man

I don’t know
Where you’re going girl
But I know
You gonna break the heart
Of another man

I don’t know
Where you’re going girl
But I know
You’re gonna break the heart
Of another man

©2022 Randy Lee Riviere

I’m headed for the source
On a new horse
Pecos is his name
When he isn’t dishin’ pain
Slow down, horse
Don’t go faster
Whoa there, horse
You’re a disaster

If I liked it on the ground
I wouldn’t need you around
If I wanted to take a train
I’d send you back from where you came

Slow down, horse
Don’t go faster
Whoa there, horse
You ornery bastard

We can’t jump this ditch
But I know you got that itch
Now you’re headed for the trees
Gunnin’ for my knees

Slow down, horse
Don’t go faster
Whoa there, horse
You’re a disaster

Hold on—
The barn
Is just a little ways
He’s got his mind
On that second cut of hay
And he don’t care
’Bout anything you say
He’s heard
Every rough word Anyway

I had to be boss
I was tired of getting tossed
And with an apple every day
We’re best buddies all the way

Alright, horse
Let’s go faster
Okay, get on, horse
You lovely bastard

©2025 Randy Lee Riviere

Black hole, just go
How deep, no one knows
But I hear that old Devil crow
I know I’ve got close

But I’m afraid to ask
For an Almighty task

Well it ain’t gone right
What’s this thing that I fight?

There ain’t no clear sight
Drink got that bite

I’m on my way
On my way … on down

Well I’ll tell you ‘bout love—
It ain’t from above

On the wings of a dove
It come from down deep

Devil want your heart
That’s just where he starts

Well I got no more light
I’m blind in this fight

Can’t give no more ear
I’m run down by fear

Yes, I’m on my way …
I’m on my way … on down

I hear him crow—
Crow
Crow

I hear him—
Crow
Crow

I’m on my way …
On down

©2025 Randy Lee Riviere and Tom Hambridge

Out on this road
I’m thinking about
All these proud souls
That don’t make big sounds
But watch you rise up
While they’re driven down

They say Hey
You can’t make this any other way
Ok, we’ll take it as it is
When it comes down

Concrete blocks
With half an open side
No more loading docks

Here, mowers get fixed
Get your tires changed out
In an old greasy car shop

They say Hey
You can’t do this any other way
Ok, we’ll take it as it is
When it comes down

Do do do do do do … do do do do do do do
Do do do do do do … do do do do do do do

Whoa, it’s been a long day
Now I got to get down to watch
them play
And I won’t know what to say
When tomorrow takes them away …

It’s the Fourth of July
There’s fireworks below
And way up high

Here, they all vote
Stand in line
With all the old folks

They say Hey
You can’t make this any other way
Ok, we’ll take it as it is When it comes down

Here, they do dovetail joints
Drawers open good
And you can hand them down

They burn their names in the wood
Put them on their truck
Strap them down real good

They say Hey
You can’t make this any other way
Ok, we’ll take it as it is When it comes down

They say Hey
You can’t make this any other way
Ok, we’ll take it as it is When it comes down

©2024 Randy Lee Riviere