Nanci Griffith - Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) Lyrics

(Woody Guthrie - Martin Hoffman)

The crops are all in
And the peaches are rotting
The oranges are stacked
In their Creosote dumps
They're flying them back
To that Mexico border
To pay all their wages
To wade back again

Chorus
Goodbye to you Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus and Maria
You won't have a name
When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you
Will be deportee

My father's own father
He waded that river
They took all the money
He made in his life
My brothers and sisters
Come working the fruit trees
And they rode on the trucks
'Til they took down and died

Chorus

Somos ilegales (Well some are illegal)
Why mal recibidos (And some are not wanted)
Se a caba el contrato (our work contracts out)
Why de alli a caminar (And we've got to move on)
Six hundred miles
To that Mexico border
They chase us like outlaws
Like rustlers, like thieves

Chorus

We died in your hills
And we died in your deserts
We died in your valleys
We died on your plains
We died 'neath your trees
And we died in your bushes
Both sides of that river
We died just the same

The sky plane caught fire
Over Los Gatos Canyon
Like a fireball of lightning
And shook all our hills
Who are all those friends
All scattered like dry leaves
The radio says
They are just deportees

Chorus

Is this the best way
We can grow our best orchards?
Is this the best way
We can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves
And rot on my topsoil
And beknown by no name
Except deportee

Chorus