From the recordings Rivers, Trails and Towns of Stokes County and SAMPLE - Educational Music Modules for Seminars
A soulful Piedmont blues journey down the Dan River, this song captures the sights, sounds, and stories of the Carolina and Virginia landscape. From herons and red foxes to tobacco barns and cypress-lined banks, it’s a musical ride through history, nature, and the enduring spirit of the river.
Lyrics
I got them Dan River blues rollin’ low and wide
From them Blue Ridge hills to that Roanoke tide
Saw a heron wade and a muskrat slide
Ain’t no map can hold it just the moon as my guide
Woke up in Patrick County mist on the land
Water whisperin’ secrets like it knowed every man
Through Meadows of Dan down past Vesta’s bend
A red fox laughin’ where the mountains end
I passed through Danbury that ol’ courthouse town
Where the sycamores sway and the pine roots down
A buck crossed the trail where the wild grape twines
And the bullfrogs sing like old church chimes
I got them Dan River blues crawdad in my shoe
Snappin’ turtles smilin’ like they know what I do
Floatin’ past Eden with the cypress crew
This water runs deep but it runs me through
Near Stoneville’s banks where the willows lean
I seen a copperhead slip where the grass grows green
Crappie in the shadows catfish on the line
A hawk in the sky drawin’ river time
In the shade of Rockingham where the coal once spilled
That river still hummin’ never fully stilled
Tobacco barns rottin’ but the asters bloom
While the whip-poor-will calls in that twilight gloom
I got them Dan River blues can’t paddle fast
Them willow ghosts whisperin’ about the past
But I’ll follow this flow till I breathe my last
Through Halifax dreams where the water runs vast
Said the river’s long but the memory’s strong
From that Carolina dawn to the Virginia song
Ain’t no chain can bind what the water knows
Got them Dan River blues where the wild wind blows