[Soft Intro] [Verse] Halfway up the mountain Where the laurel chokes the trail There's a cabin leanin' crooked With a candle burnin' pale They say don't stop at the widow's They say don't drink from her well But the night come down like iron And I needed somewhere to dwell [Verse] She fed me beans and cornbread Never asked me for my name Just stared into the fire Like she read it in the flame Then she set her cup down slowly With a hand carved out of bone Said, "You're the Buckner boy, ain't you Climbin' up to take back what's your own" [Chorus] [Female Vocal] "Turn around, child The mountain keeps its share Every man that climbs it angry Leaves somethin' up there Turn around, child While your feet still know the way What the Tatums took's a kettle What the mountain takes, it takes for good and aye" [Fiddle Break] [Verse] I told her I'd not turn around Not for law nor blood nor frost She laughed the way the winter laughs At the seeds that get lost Said, "I've seen your kind of walkin' Seen them boots and seen that coat" Then she reached behind the woodstove And my heart rose in my throat [Bridge] [Spoken Word] [Female Vocal] "Nineteen and fifty-two. A Buckner boy sat in that very chair. Ate my beans. Wore that very look. I told him what I'm tellin' you. He left me one shoe to remember him by. You want to know what the mountain did with the rest of him?" [Silence] "So does the mountain." [Chorus] [Female Vocal] "Turn around, child The mountain keeps its share Every man that climbs it angry Leaves somethin' up there Turn around, child While your feet still know the way What the Tatums took's a kettle What the mountain takes, it takes for good and aye" [Verse] Come the gray light of the mornin' I was gone before she rose Left two dollars on the table And a chill down in my bones But her words walked up beside me Every stony step I trod Not the warnin' 'bout the Tatums The part about the ones the mountain's got [Outro] [Female Vocal] [Whisper] "Turn around, child Turn around"
