Lyrics

Dreams of My Grandparents's House
(c)2019 Jud Caswell (Alderdown Songs, ASCAP)

Just a kid in the corner on a rollaway bed
Spare bedroom, eyes open wide
To the tick of the clock, the hum of the radio,
Frank Sinatra swaying in time
To the whispering hiss of the steam radiator
Clearing it's throat with a will
The house is a giant, asleep and alive
I pull the sheets closer and wonder what's filling

The dreams of my grandparents' house
The dreams of my grandparents' house

There's a cast-iron peeler clamped to the table
Gravensteins shedding their skins.
The brown of the crust, the black of the burner,
The shine of the tin scoop in the old flour bin
There's pickles and spinach and beans under glass
On the shelf at the foot of the stair
To plant and to pick and to lay enough by
To last through the winter, with a little left to spare

Were the dreams of my grandparents' house
The dreams of my grandparents' house

Now older bones find warmer homes
When eyesight and hindsight fail
Younger hands carve bigger plans
Of hammer and sawtooth and nail

The walls came down and a roof was raised
For a big garage on the lawn
And those rambling rooms once tight as honeycomb
Are broken open, and the honey is gone
And the kitchen in stainless and spotlessly clean
Of the footprints of five generations
And I don't want to visit, because I don't want to see
I don't want to let these changes erase

My dreams of my grandparents' house
My dreams of my grandparents' house