Sickle In The Cane - Nina Ricci (Original Song)

Written about the Louisiana sugarcane farmers.
Special thanks to Wendy and Benjie Hunt.

Sickle In the Cane
Nina Ricci

Verse 1. Pull out your shovel, pull out your hoe
Take a little walk down through the cornrows
Just a little farther past the sycamore grove
The wind’s a little sweeter on the road

Verse 2. The harvest moon is full and the apple trees are right
They’re ripe for the picking not a soul will sleep tonight
You can smell anticipation from a mile or more
The sugar cane is ready and the sickle’s at the door

Refrain: Workers in a line all hands to the fields
Everybody ready? All hands!

Verse 3. Weary workers stuff their baskets high with crops they’ll never taste
Their arms grow sore and shaky with strain of keeping pace
The acres feel like miles the tractor engine grinds
The ladders feel the longer after 1,500 climbs

Verse 4. Sixteen hundred bushels thirteen hundred pecks
Three hundred weary workers with sunburns on their necks
They’re sapped but not subdued and not a one complains
Who would dare to count their troubles when the sickle’s in the cane?

Verse 5. Sickle in the cane sickle in the cane,
plowing in the heat and picking in the rain,
market day is here and the wagons, hitched to pull
The harvest land is bare but their pockets will be full
Chorus: Workers in a line, travel past the field
The working days are over for all hands

Refrain: Workers in a line all hands to the fields
Everybody ready? All hands!

Nina Ricci ©2012