on a sign I saw hanging in the store today it said in big bright red letters there's work in California there's an honest job waiting for every good man nobody goes hungry you pick the peaches with your hand cause the cotton don't grow here if it never rains and the wind starts to blow here and it blows right through your brain it'll carry away what the locust doesn't get and the bills don't get paid >and the bank takes the rest fight with the land till it hurts and you don't know what for you might call me the salt of the earth but I call me dirt poor and the dust coming over the plains doesn't care about me see it fill up the sky that's all the convincing I need when all I'll be leaving behind me is ashes and rust mama pack up the truck California or bust say goodbye to the dust My grandfather came out here in 1841 my father was born here and all of his sons and he built this whole place with his two strong hands when he died he had faith in hard work and good land In the Great War we planted cotton the army needed cloth my dad said get in on the boom, boy there's no time to be lost so he got a new mortgage the American way then the wind came out of nowhere and it wouldn't go away fight with the land till it hurts and you don't know what for you may call me the salt of the earth but I call me dirt poor and the dust coming over the plains doesn't care about me see it fill up the sky that's all the convincing I need when all I'll be leaving behind me is ashes and rust mama pack up the truck California or bust say goodbye to the dust And the dust is coming coming, the dust keeps on coming