Lyrics: Ruben James

[Tom Simon]

Ruben James

Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
1969



Ruben James, in my song you live again
And the phrases that I rhyme
Are just the footsteps out of time
From the time when I knew you Ruben James

Ruben James all the folks around Madison County
Cussed your name just a no
Count share croppin colored man
Who would steal anything he can
And they always laid the blame on Ruben James

Ruben James, you still walk furrowed fields on my mind
The faded skirt the weathered brow
The calloused hand up on the plow
I loved you then and I love you now Ruben James
Flora James, Ruben James

Flora Gray, a gossip of Madison County died with child
And although your skin was black
It was you that would not turn your back
On a hungry white child with no name, Ruben James

Ruben James, with your mind on my soul
And the bible in your right hand
You said turn the other cheek
A better world is a waiting for the meek
In my head those words remain from Ruben James

Ruben James one dark cloudy day
That brought you from the fields
And to your lonely pine box came
Just a preacher, me and the rain
To sing one last refrain for Ruben James

[H Glazer]

Post by Tom Simon
Ruben James
Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
1969
Ruben James, you still walk furrowed fields on my mind
The faded skirt the weathered brow

This song has always summoned up vivid images for me, but poor old Ruben
walking the fields in a skirt has never been one of them until now!

H.

[Tom Simon]

Post by H Glazer

Post by Tom Simon
Ruben James
Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
1969
Ruben James, you still walk furrowed fields on my mind
The faded skirt the weathered brow

This song has always summoned up vivid images for me, but poor old Ruben
walking the fields in a skirt has never been one of them until now!
H.

It is difficult to determine the exact lyrics to a lot of songs.
Sometimes two artists will record it and the words will be different
from one version to the next.The word shirt seems to make sense here
and it certainly sounds to me like that is what is being said, but
most of the lyrics servers that I checked had it listed as skirt so I
left it that way.

Another line that shows up differently in different listings of the
lyrics for this song is the one that says "Gray, a gossip of Madison
County died with child." In some listings, it says "Flora Gray, a
gossip of Madison County died with child." I arbitrarily went with the
second one.

There are some other interesting aspects to this song, such as that
sometimes you will see an alternate spelling of "Reuben James." There
was a US warship, a destroyer called the USS Ruben James, that was
sunk by the Germans in 1941. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about it and
that song was popular with folk groups for a number of years,
especially the Kingston Trio who recorded it. But it is an entirely
different song than the one sung by Kenny Rogers.

I could go on and on, and the same is true for many other songs.