Lyrics

Family Scrapbook
Words & Music By Diana Di Gioia

It was the 1950’s version of the 1970’s
There were brothers, sister, chickens, cows, a dog, a cat and me
We were raised up in the mountains, under spruce and maple trees
In our 1950’s version of the 1970’s

Our home had been a stagecoach stop on the road to Montreal
In ’65 it was condemned, they thought the roof would fall
Dad rebuilt the foundation, with fieldstones moved by hand
My brother and I would push and pry to help free them from the land

Our Ma had borne four babies by the age of twenty six
The Catholics got her young enough to get her in this fix
She learned to cook and garden, and to bake most anything
You could tell that she was happy when she would start to sing

Chorus

If you can grow it, mend it, make your own, we will all get by some how
We didn’t have a “Lower Forty”, but in the basement there’s a cow
They say that you can’t eat the view but it feeds us anyway
My Northeast Kingdom childhood makes me who I am today

There was never any money, but there was always food and wood
If you could stay and raise a family here, they’d say you’re doin’ good
The neighbors all were land – poor, they’d get by on what they made
With a couple dozen dairy cows and the maple syrup trade


Vermonters, they don’t ask for help but when you’ve lived a while
You’ll know
To join in bringin’ in the hay when the thunderclouds do show
And we would want for nothin’, thanks to the farmer’s wife
Who brought us water every morn’ when a cold snap froze our pipes

The Townsend Dairy Farm sat at the top of Pudding Hill
For a while Mom got our milk there, and it was quite a thrill
She’d pour the cream in a mason jar, and each would take a turn
We’d shake until our arms would ache; the family butter churn

In the autumn we’d pick apples at an old abandoned farm
The older ones would climb the trees while the young ones searched the ground
There’d be apple pies and apple sauce, and bushel baskets more
Layered with red and golden leaves, for our cellar’s winter store

Chorus
If you can grow it, mend it, make your own, we will all get by some how
We didn’t have a “Lower Forty”, but in the basement there’s a cow
They say that you can’t eat the view but it feeds us anyway
My Northeast Kingdom childhood makes me who I am today

It was the 1950’s version of the 1970’s
There were brothers, sister, chickens, cows, a dog, a cat and me
They say that you can’t eat the view but it feeds us anyway
My Northeast Kingdom childhood makes me who I am today

They say that you can’t eat the view but it feeds us anyway
My Northeast Kingdom childhood makes me who I am today