The first things I remember are frosty Carolina mornings With a cheery fire crackling in my momma's big black wood cook stove I remember snow flakes as big as goose feathers And the moon the color of new made country butter And a night sky like diamonds against black velvet Reaching from horizon to horizon
I remember when the biggest problems in my barefoot life Were sand spurs and red ant hills I remember sitting with my grand daddy on the front porch And watching the last of that magnificent southern sun Bleed away into the twilight sky
I remember Sunday school and kneeling at the cross And trying to imagine what God looked like Sunday dinner short pants hair cuts and a little puppy My daddy brought home to me and I remember love
I remember steam puffing fire breathing awesome 10 wheel locomotives And the conductors watch looked As big as one of my grand mothers biscuits I remember my mother smiling in a red and white cherckered dress And Christmas always seemed so far away Yes I remember you Carolina grand old lady if the south I remember you as home
One of the memories that stays on my mind About an old southern lady that I left behind Is a ramshackle bridge where the deep river winds And an old two-lane blacktop through the tall long-leaf pines
Carolina, Carolina You're hard, but you're hard to forget
I still remember the magnolia nights And goosefeather snow flakes in the gray morning light Sandspurs and puppies and red autumn leaves And the warm lights in the clear night on a cold Christmas Eve
Carolina, Carolina You're hard, but you're hard to forget
Carolina I knew you Before the highways got to you And I loved you as one of your own And I still do
Carolina, Carolina You're hard, but you're hard to forget You're hard to forget