In The Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)
Composer(s): Dolly Parton
First release by: Merle Haggard & The Strangers - 1968



We'd get up before sun-up to get the work done up
We'd work in the fields till the sun had gone down
We've stood and we've cried as we have bristly watched
A hailstorm a beatin' our crops to the ground
We've gone to bed hungry many nights in the past
In the good old days when times were bad

No amount of money could buy from me
The memories that I have of then
No amount of money could pay me
To go back and live through it again

I've seen daddy's hands break open and bleed
And I've seen him work till he's stiff as a board
And I've seen momma layin' in suffer and sickness
In need of a doctor we couldn't afford
Anything at all was more than we had
In the good old days when times were bad

We've got up before and found ice on the floor
Where the wind would blow snow through the cracks in the wall
And I couldn't enjoy then, havin' a boyfriend
I had nothing decent to wear at all
So I long for a love that I never had
In the good old days when times were bad

No amount of money could buy from me
The memories that I have of then
No amount of money could pay me
To go back and live through it again

In the good old days when times were bad
In the good old days when times were bad