Song Description

Story song based on family history in Jim Crow Era South. Thought-provoking, poignant, old-time feel with guitar, piano, accordion and vocal harmonies

Lyrics

Eva oh Eva, skin of India ink
I still hear you singing, "God is our refuge and our strength"

I was born in the land of cotton where the war never was forgotten
A legacy of stars and bars, dreams of Southern resurrection
They called me Samuel Williamson I took a wife but she was not one
For tenderness or marital affection
Eva was the household maid
Granddaughter of a former slave
Her feather duster flying, her sweet countenance
We did not look at it as sin
My hands so light on her dark skin
I thought loving Eva must be providence
Eva oh Eva
God is our refuge and our strength

Eva had our little dark-skin boy but she remained in my employ
Although my sleep was restless with ancestral condemnation
When she birthed the second one, so much like me, my light-skin son
I dismissed her to spare my reputation
But dutiful and conscientious
I'd drive to Eva's in north Memphis
With eighty dollars monthly but no records kept
Then came he crash of twenty-nine
Bankruptcy and long bread lines
What little I could offer she'd accept
Eva oh Eva
God is our refuge and our strength

My rise again to wealth and favor was lauded in the local paper
But when I died my boys stood outside grieving from a distance
There were no provisions in the will for the bastard sons of Samuel
Oh the scandal were it known of their existence
But Eva she raised two fine men
Young Otis and brother Hamilton
They worked to send each other to universities
Now Otis could have passed for white
But in his eyes it was not right
He'd not deny his mother's family tree
Oh I'd like to think in another time
I'd have had such courage, made her mine
And done right for Eva and the boys
Eva oh Eva
God is our refuge and our strength