Album: Tracks II: The Lost Albums (2025)
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  • Over the washes of the Big and Little Tujunga
    Above the Mojave in a two-horse buckboard
    Bill Mulholland, Fred Eaton set out for the Owens River Valley
    In the fall of 1904

    Through the Tehachapi, up along the Sierra Nevada
    Through the Green Valley towards the Owens River mouth
    They come to bring that Owens River water
    Two hundred miles to the desert city south

    Ain't you feelin' dry? Ain't you feelin' dry now?
    My brother, ain't you feelin' dry?

    I was a blaster in the black hole of Elizabeth
    Hard rock tunneled five miles of the coast range
    In the black mud, we drilled and set the charges
    Blew through that mountain in just a thousand days

    Owens River water for the Queen of Angels
    From the heavens of the High Sierra packed snow
    Owens River water for the children of the Queen of Angels
    Make rich the land syndicate of the San Fernando

    Ain't you feelin' dry? Ain't you feelin' dry now?
    My brother, ain't you feelin' dry?

    My uncle pushed the Paiute from their valley
    Cut out his homestead in blood
    And pulled crops out the desert sand
    Then the south, they come to share our water
    'Cause the south was thirsty, my friend

    Come the drought of '19, they started pumpin'
    Water from the Owens table underground
    Our big cottonwoods died, our ranches, they went dry
    The green fields, they blew dusty and brown

    I set the first charges for the ranchers in '24
    Fired the fuse on two hundred pounds of dynamite
    Blew a hole in that aqueduct I'd helped build
    Sent thunder rollin' out across the desert night

    Ain't you feelin' dry? Ain't you feelin' dry now?
    My brother, ain't you feelin' dry?

    Sacramento, the Kern, the Colorado
    The King, the San Joaquin, my friend
    For the power, for the water, for the prosperity
    And for the men with the money in the end

    Tonight the Santa Ana's drawin' west across the Mojave
    Blowin' fire and dust onto L.A. County windowsills
    Bill Mulholland, Fred Eaton's dead in their graves
    The Queen of Angels, she remains thirsty still

    Ain't you feelin' dry? Ain't you feelin' dry now?
    My brother, ain't you feelin' dry?
    Ain't you feelin' dry? Ain't you feelin' dry now?
    My good brother, ain't you feelin' dry? Writer/s: Bruce Springsteen
    Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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