My name is
Anna
Olsson, living
Norway was so hard
I watched my nearest neighbors now
planting fruit trees in their yard
Their dreaming of the old land
has but added to their tears
As most of their young children died be
fore they reached six years
Unmarried me a
Svalbard man, praise
God we fared quite well
While others fled in dark of night
from land to producer
Some hung themselves in apple
trees on broken bankrupt farms
The sun would rise on rotten fruit and
the smoke of burning barns
American primitive man,
American primitive man
He never touched me with an angry hand,
American primitive man
This land was conquered horseback,
its horses now we race
Percherons and
Clydesdales are trained in farming ways
Our daylight's gone to dusty work,
the night is storms and fright
And the lonesome sound of orphan trains
whistling through the night
And when the wind moves through the
barley and the owls begin to moan
Makes the body mournful for the
wars we've left back home
So many nights I watched the storm,
I stared out through the rain
And dreamt of our departed boy
Riding on the orphan train
The son who ran away from us
On that orphan train