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Lyrics

Two Graves
©2010 Doug Spears
 
When the 20's were roarin' life in the Glades,
Was a life lived on plenty the best of all days,
Belle Glade and Pahokee were home to hired hands,
Good men and women who toiled on the land.
 
Each day in the sun their strong backs they'd bend,
Over rich fields that seemed to run on without end,
And for their trouble a wage they were paid,
From the sweat of their labor vast fortunes were made, and
 
Two graves, two graves,
Even in death hate has no shame,
So they laid them all down in two separate graves.
 
In '28 came a terrible blow,
Across the big water the waves they did grow,
No earthen dike could stem the wild tide,
Where devil's desire and fate did collide.
 
Terrified eyes lashed by the wind,
From trees and rooftops saw the horrible grin,
Of the great roaring monster, a foaming black flow,
That pulled thousands down to a dark death below, in
 
Two graves, two graves,
Even in death hate has no shame,
So they laid them all down in two separate graves.
 
When the great storm had passed Okeechobee's black mud,
Was strewn with the dead drowned in the flood,
The vultures soon circled above the foul smell,
As the bodies lay swelling in a hot humid hell.
 
Now boys you go gather and those you return,
Some we will bury and some we will burn,
Betters remembered with marble so white,
Lessers forgotten black as the night, in
 
Two graves, two graves,
Even in death hate has no shame,
So they laid them all down in two separate graves.
 
Now the land is well healed and the dikes rise again,
But the dead they still linger in a shadow of sin,
The price that was paid that terrible night,
Was the same price for all rich, poor, black or white, but
 
Two graves, two graves,
Even in death hate has no shame,
So they laid them all down in two separate graves.
 
Yes they laid them all down in two separate graves.