nanci griffith
deportee (plane wreck at los gatos)
(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    