CHANGING TIMES

© 1985 Dan MacArthur, BMI

Gordon – vocal & 12-string guitar

Will, Matt, Kat, Jim, David, Anne, Holly -vocals

From my dear MacArthur family of Marlboro VT, whose love and work has kept so many traditions of music, building and land care alive and healthy in the world that feeds us all.

first chorus:

The grasses grow tall until the hay it is mown

Then the fields lie still till the new seed is sown

Many children standing here have watched the grass wave in the wind

We're the ones who stand here now but many others will again

Long, long ago these fields and the crops that they grew here

Might decide a family's fate for another coming year

Like the grasses that grow tall and get cut down for hay

So generations moved in here, made their marks and moved away

second chorus:

And the fields lie still till the new seed is sown

And the grasses grow tall till the hay it is mown

Many children standing here have watched the grass wave in the wind

We're the ones who stand here now, but many others will again

After clearing off the land and piling up their long stonewalls

They walked for miles for the seed, then they hoped the good rains fall

And when the rains come down right and all the crops grew tall and strong

Families had enough to eat for another winter long

(first chorus)

Perhaps the time will come again when these fields will mean more

And we'll learn to care for them as others did so long before

And like the seed that's newly sown and springs to life with sun and rain

People's lives may grow to know the value of these fields again

(second chorus)

We're the ones who live here now, but many others will again

Changing Times is recorded on the album Because You Asked and also on the Folk-Legacy album Minneapolis Concert.