A Mountaineer Is Always Free - Tim O’Brien and Pierce Pettis / Howdy Skies Music / Universal Music Corp / PolyGram International Publishing Inc / ASCAP

I’m one of the few, proud to be standing
I walked up the pier from the coffin ships landing
My clothes were just rags, no use in this weather
But my back was strong, my hands tough as leather

I climbed these hills ‘til I came to the spot where I stand
I cleared these fields and I pulled up the stumps with my hands
No more a wanderer, no more a refugee
A mountaineer is always free

Took a Cherokee bride, she gave me five babies
I sang at the wakes I cried at the weddings
I taught all my children the songs of my youth
To dance to the fiddle and practice the truth

I carried them up on my shoulders to where they could see
The whole world before them just so they would know what it means
No more a wanderer, no more a refugee
A mountaineer is always free

No kings and no landlords to treat us like beggars and thieves
There’s no one but God here to fear or to look down on me
No more a wanderer, no more a refugee
A mountaineer is always free

– A Mountaineer Is Always Free – was co-written with Alabama singer songwriter Pierce Pettis, and it speaks of the immigrant’s pride in making a home and family in the new world. Pierce’s brain was firing away, and as he riffed ideas and I wrote them down and changed a few to make them rhyme. He remembered that the seal of the state of West Virginia contains the Latin – Montani Semper Liberi – and said excitedly, “There’s your song title.” This track is one of several featuring the bass of Viktor Krauss and the guitar of Darrell Scott, who at that point was my regular touring partner. Seamus Egan added low whistles