"I hate songs about hobos"

said The Fiddle Player.

"Gee," said the parents, "perhaps you could overlook that fact for four minutes and 23 seconds and record a fiddle track for us even though you hate songs about hobos. After all, we financed years of fiddle lessons, paid to straighten your teeth and endured months of colic. Not that we're keeping a tab or anything."

The Fiddle Player took pity on us and gave us the track we needed to finish up the recording of "The Cardboard Sign."



Vocals: Craig Friedman

Fiddle: Annie Friedman

Back up vocals, guilt trip: Erin Friedman


The Cardboard Sign -- words and music by Erin Friedman

Saw him just ten miles south
Of the Shasta County Line
An old hobo with his thumb out
Holdin' up a Cardboard Sign
His ragged jeans were washed in dirt
His flannel shirt was frayed
On his sign was a single word
Made me hit the brakes


Chorus:
The Cardboard Sign he held to his chest
Told the passers-by where he was headed next
The lines on his face said “Weary to the bone”
His eyes said “Please”
His sign said “HOME”


Had a voice like an old dirt road
Had a hundred dusty stories
Ladies, moonshine and rodeos
Freight trains bound for glory
He said, “There’s a price for runnin’ wild
And I paid my dues in Memphis
Did my time, made up my mind
Now it’s time for mending fences”


The Cardboard Sign he held to his chest
Told the passers-by where he was headed next
The lines on his face said “Weary to the bone”
His eyes said “Please”
His sign said “HOME"


At the end of a gravel drive
Just outside McCloud
He said “I’m much obliged
Here’s where I get out”
A woman waving from the porch
Came running down to meet him
I turned around and headed for
The place that I’d been leavin’

The Cardboard Sign he tossed on the seat
Was a one-word lifeline that old man threw to me
The lines on his face said “Weary to the bone”
His eyes said “Please”
His sign said “HOME”


Saw him just ten miles south
Of the Shasta COunty line
An old hobo with his thumb out
Holdin' up a Cardboard Sign