The last county fairs of the season are closing out across small-town North America right now, and that got me thinking about what homecoming really is. It ain't the school gym. It's the fair weekend — the one weekend a year the whole town comes home through the same gate, whether it left for Chicago or just left for the winter.
So I wrote this one for every man who swore at eighteen he'd never drive back — and makes the drive every September anyway. The folks at the fair will tell you he comes back for Mrs. Talley's lemon pie or the fiddle in the pavilion. I'll tell you the truth, down by the cattle barn: there's a fair board on that wall, forty falls of grand champions in wooden frames, and top of the row there's a young man in his church-day best. That's the reason. That's the whole reason.
If you've got a name like that hanging on a wall back home — go stand in front of it this fall. It'll hold.
[Verse 1]
September paints the courthouse square in rust and gold
Mums on the porch rails where the old stories get retold
I left this town at eighteen, said I'd never come back
But every fall that fair gate creaks and cuts me slack
First cold Friday, the midway starts to glow
It's a three-hour drive I've never once called slow
[Chorus]
I keep comin' back when the string lights shine
Sawdust and fiddle, the mums all in a line
Whole town's home like they never left
One more September — Lord, I'm blessed
They say you can't go home again
Watch me
[Verse 2]
Mrs. Talley's lemon pie takes the ribbon again
4-H kids in their jackets, calves quiet as kin
The wheel moans up like a lonesome train
String lights swingin' in the September rain
I two-step with old friends' shadows on the boards
Laughin' 'bout trouble we couldn't never afford
And nobody here asks me where I've been
That gate don't grade you — it just lets you in
[Chorus]
I keep comin' back when the string lights shine
Sawdust and fiddle, the mums all in a line
Whole town's home like they never left
One more September — Lord, I'm blessed
They say you can't go home again
Watch me
[Fiddle Break]
[Verse 3]
Out by the cattle barn where the fair boards hang
Forty falls of champions in their frames
Top of the row, a young man stands
Church-day best, blue ribbon in his hand
Daddy — nineteen seventy-eight
Three days shy of his forty-first birthday
So I don't come back for the pie or the wheel
I come back to the wall where his name is still real
[Chorus — Final]
I keep comin' back when the string lights shine
Sawdust and fiddle, the mums all in a line
Whole town's home like they never left
One more September — Lord, I'm blessed
They say you can't go home again
But home ain't gone — it's waitin' at the fair
[Spoken Outro]
Every year, first cool Friday of the fall, cruise set on sixty-two,
coffee gone by the county line.
Gate creaks, fiddle tunes up,
and there he is — top of the row, grand champion,
grinnin' like the whole fair was his.
Hey, Daddy. Made it back.
Written & performed by Waylon · DirtRoadRadio
