Forefathers Lyrics - Fogelberg Dan

They came from Scandinavia 

The land of midnight sun 

And crossed the North Atlantic 

When this century was young 

They'd heard that in America 

Every man was free 

To live the way he chose to live 

And be who he could be. 

Some of them were farmers there 

And tilled the frozen soil 

But all they got was poverty 

For all their earnest toil 

They say one was a sailor 

Who sailed the wide world round 

Made home port--got drunk one night 

Walked off the pier and drowned. 

My mother was of Scottish blood 

It's there that she was born 

They brought her to America in 1924 

They left behind the highlands 

And the heather covered hills 

And came to find America 

With broad, expectant dreams 

And iron wills. 

My grandad worked the steel mills 

Of central Illinois 

His daughter was his jewel 

His son was just his boy 

For thirty years he worked the mills 

And stoked the coke-fed fires 

And looked toward the day 

When he'd at last turn 65 

And could retire. 

Chorus 

And the sons become the fathers 

And the daughters will be wives 

As the torch is passed from hand to hand 

And we struggle through our lives 

Though the generations wander 

The lineage survives 

And all of us 

From dust to dust 

We all become forefathers 

By and by. 

The woman and the man were wed 

Just after the war 

And they settled in this river town 

And three fine sons she bore 

One became a lawyer 

And one fine pictures drew 

And one became this lonely soul 

Who sits here now 

And sings this song to you. 

(Repeat chorus)