I'm Going to Poughkeepsie

tune: I'm Going Back to Dixie

I was listening to a recording of Jeff Warner and Jeff Davis singing I'm Going Back to Dixie and I started wondering why Northern-born folk singers are always singing songs that rhapsodize the South, like Take Me Back to the Sweet Sunny South and so on. I wondered why there don't seem to be any places up North that they want to return to. So I wrote about such a place.

Chorus:

I'm going to Poughkeepsie, I'm going to Poughkeepsie,

I'm going where the apple blossoms grow.

My body starts to quiver, down by the Hudson River,

My heart is in Poughkeepsie, and I must go.

I'm going to Poughkeepsie, I can no longer wander,

This weather down in Dixie, I can't take it no longer,

I hear my mama calling, the Autumn leaves are falling,

My heart is in Poughkeepsie, and I must go.

Ch.

You'll hear that dot dash chorus, in the home of Samuel Morse,

When I telegraph that I am coming home.

I’ll quit that old plantation. Take a train up to Penn Station

My heart is in Poughkeepsie, and I must go.

Ch.

I'm going to Poughkeepsie, my friends all think I’m ditsy

They can’t believe that I am heading north

To that little piece of heaven, right off Rte 87,

My heart is in Poughkeepsie, and I must go.

Ch.