Story Behind The Song
From the Billboard top 10 album "Dust Bowl - American Stories", recounts the fear and trepidation felt by a farm looking out over the prairie, as he sees yet another enormous dust storm, aka "black roller" coming to wreck havoc the land and people.
Song Description
From the Billboard top 10 album "Dust Bowl - American Stories", recounts the fear and trepidation felt by a farm looking out over the prairie, as he sees yet another enormous dust storm, aka "black roller" coming to wreck havoc the land and people. It also shows the grit and determination of those people. They were "hard as horseshoe nails"
| Song Length |
3:04 |
Genre |
Country - Americana, Country - Alternative |
| Tempo |
Medium Slow (91 - 110) |
Lead Vocal |
Male Vocal |
| Mood |
Worried, Poignant |
Subject |
Disasters, Prairie, Plains |
| Similar Artists |
Tom Petty |
Language |
English |
| Era |
1930 - 1939 |
| |
Lyrics
Old Black Roller
words and music © Grant Maloy Smith
Old black roller
Taller than the sky
Old black roller
He's angrier this time
Old black roller
Chasing out our plows
Raining down pneumonia
Killing all our cows
Old black roller
Why'd you come today?
Half of Oklahoma
Is blowing dead away
Dust might choke us
Lord let us prevail
We're from Oklahoma
We're hard as horse shoe nails