Nina Simone - My Father lyrics

Judy Collins

Original lyrics by Judy Collins

My father always promised me

That we would live in France

We'd go boating on the Seine

And I would learn to dance

We lived in Ohio then

He worked in the mines

On his dreams like boats

We knew we would sail in time

All my sisters soon were gone

To Denver and Cheyenne

Marrying their grownup dreams

The lilacs and the man

I stayed behind the youngest still

Only danced alone

The colors of my father's dreams

Faded without a sound

And I live in Paris now

My children dance and dream

Hearing the ways of a miner's life

In words they've never seen

I sail my memories of home

Like boats across the Seine

And watch the Paris sun

As it sets in my father's eyes again

My father always promised us

That we would live in France

We'd go boating on the Seine

And I would learn to dance

I sail my memories of home

Like boats across the Seine

And watch the Paris sun

As it sets in my father's eyes again