The Brothers Nelson - The Call of the Yukon (I Wanted the Gold) Lyrics

I wanted the gold and I sought it
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave
Was it famine or scurvy-I fought it
I hurled my youth into a grave
I wanted the gold and I got it
Came out with a fortune last fall
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it
And somehow the gold isn't all
You come to get rich (damned good reason)
You feel like an exile at first
You hate it like hell for a season
And then you are worse than the worst
It grips you like some kinds of sinning
It twists you from foe to a friend
It seems it's been since the beginning
It seems it will be to the end
There's a land where the mountains are nameless
And the rivers all run God knows where
There are lives that are erring and aimless
And deaths that just hang by a hair
There are hardships that nobody reckons
There are valleys unpeopled and still
There's a land-oh it beckons and beckons
And I want to go back-and I will
I wanted the gold and I got it
Came out with a fortune last fall
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it
And somehow the gold isn't all
There's gold and it's haunting and haunting
It's luring me on as of old
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold
It's the great big broad land 'way up yonder
It's the forests where silence has lease
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder
It's the stillness that fills me with peace
I wanted the gold and I got it
Came out with a fortune last fall
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it
And somehow the gold isn't all