A ballad telling the story of a young man, son of a tenant farmer, in the Dust Bowl region. The father is gone because he died or abandoned the family so the bank is foreclosing on the farm. Rather than giving up, getting up and leaving as others have ("so collect your courage and collect your horse, and pray you never feel the same kind of remorse") the son instead decided to fight back. He gets his gun and when whomever is to take over the property comes to kick the family off (or he goes and hunts them down himself) there is a fight, symbolized in song by the sudden violent instrumental, and the boy hurts or kills him. Now he's in court pleading guilty.
A ballad telling the story of a young man, son of a tenant farmer, in the Dust Bowl region. The father is gone because he died or abandoned the family so the bank is foreclosing on the farm. Rather than giving up, getting up and leaving as others have ("so collect your courage and collect your horse, and pray you never feel the same kind of remorse") the son instead decided to fight back. He gets his gun and when whomever is to take over the property comes to kick the family off (or he goes and hunts them down himself) there is a fight, symbolized in song by the sudden violent instrumental, and the boy hurts or kills him. Now he's in court pleading guilty.