Amy Carol Webb: Music

Florida's My Own

(Amy Carol Webb)

2008-05

Sitting in the White Springs Gazebo at my first Florida Folk Festival, Grant Livingston challenged me to write Florida Songs. This was my first, on the way home from Gamblefest, after Patsy and Duke Camilleri fetched me up the hill to the Will McLean booth to meet Margaret Longhill. We captured this one in Tom’s Big Top at Willfest 2008The first Florida song I wrote, after meeting Margaret Longhill at the Gamble Rogers Festival in St. Augustine – where Patsy and Duke Camilleri fetched me up the hill to the Will McLean Foundation booth. We captured this one in Tom’s Big Top at Willfest 2008 – you can hear the rowdy joy of the festival going on around us! ACW: Guitar and vocals • Elisabeth Williamson: Banjo and vocals • Lon Williamson: Bass • Mindy Simmons: Vocals

Sometimes you don't know that you are home, until you've been livin' there awhile
Sometime you can't realize your happiness, until you chance the reflection of your smile
Ten years ago I landed where the sand is white, and the sea is green and warm
Two-thousand miles from my mama's cradle, I found the welcoming arms

Florida's my own
Florida's my home
From sweet Suwannee air to Mallory Square
Florida's my own

I've traveled the taverns, tents and towns along the roads of the great forty-eight
But I could not listen to my inner voice till I played through the Sunshine state
Not till I sang out my heart's own songs around the fires of Easterlin
We started out strangers in the first three chords but by the chorus we were old friends

Florida's my own …

By the time I got here, Gamble was gone, and Will McLean and Don Grooms
Still I hear their stories and historic glories celebrated in your tunes
I feel I've known them all along and in a way I surely do
Their lives' legacy shines on and on in the treasures I find in you

Florida's my own …

In the White Springs Gazebo, Grant shook my hand, said Sister here's where you belong
Your melody's sweet and your poetry sound but can you write a Florida Song
So I took my paper, my pen and my strings to the shade of Alachua oak
To quietly contemplate all I love and what I love is Florida Folk

I'm thanking you now for your faithfulness, for harmony and rhyme
I'm not born or bred here, just gently led here
Now I claim Florida as mine

I'm not born or bred here, just gently led here
Now I claim Florida as mine