Here Was A Man - Johnny Cash
Here was a man a man who was born in a small village the son of a peasant woman
He grew up in another small village
Until he reached the age of thirty he worked as a carpenter
Then for three years he was a traveling minister
But he never traveled more than two hundred miles from where he was born
And where he did go he usually walked
He never held political office he never wrote a book never bought a home
Never had a family he never went to college and he never set foot inside a big city
Yes here was a man
Though he never did one on the things usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself he had nothing to do with this world
Except through the divine purpose that brought him to this world
While he was still a young man the tide of popular opinion turned against him
Most of his friends ran away, one of them denied him,
One of them betrayed him and turned him over to his enemies
Then he went through the mockery of a trial
And was nailed to a cross between two thieves
And even while he was dying his executioners gambled
For the only piece of property that he had in this world
And that was his robe, his purple robe.
When he was dead he was taken down from the cross
And laid in a borrowed grave provided by compassionate friends
More than nineteen centuries have come and gone
And today he's the centerpiece of the human race
Our leader in the column to human destiny
I think I'm well within the mark when I say that all of the armies that ever marched,
All of the navies that ever sailed the seas
All of the legislative bodies that ever sat and all of the kings that ever reigned
All of them put together have not affected the life of man on this earth
So powerfully as that one solitary life
Here was a man (joy to the world the Lord is come)
And another one:
Christmas As I Knew It - Johnny Cash
One day near Christmas when I was just a child
Mama called us together and mama tried to smile
She said you know the cottoncrop hasn't been too good this year
There's just no spending money and well at least we're all here
I hope you won't expect a lot of Christmas presents
Just be thankful that there is plenty to eat
That's quite a blessing that'll make things a little more pleasant
And us kids got to thinking how really blessed we were
At least we were all healthy and best of all we had her
Roy cut down a pigapple tree and we drug it home Jack and me
Daddy killed a squirrel and Louise made the bread
Reba decorated the tree with popcorn strings before we went to bed
Mama and daddy sacrificed cause this Christmas was lean
But after all there was the babies Tom and Joanne babies need a few things
I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack and though we fought now and then
When I gave Jack that whistle he knew I thought the world of him
Mama made the girl's dresses out of flower sacks
And when she ironed them down you couldn't tell that they hadn't come from town
A sharecropped family across the road didn't have it as good as us
They didn't even have a light and it was way past dusk
And mama said well I bet they don't even have coaloil or beans to boil
A log apples cranges and such
Me and Jack took a jar of coaloil nd some hickernuts we'd found
We walked to the sharecropper's porch and set 'em down
A poor old ragged lady eased open the door
She picked up the coaloil and hickernuts and said
I sure do thank ye and quickly closed the door
We started back home me and Jack and about halfway we stopped looked back
And in the sharecropper's window at last was a light
So for one of the neighbors and for us it was a good Christmas night
Christmas came and Christmas went Christmas that year was heaven sent
Then daddy put on his gumboots waited for the thaw back home in Dyess Arkansas