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)