Lyrics
[Verse 1 — Born to the Mountain] Nora Lou was born where everybody’s poor, No shame in nothing when it’s nothing at your door, Mountain mouth like a hymn from the hollow, Maters and taters, bistits she’d follow.
[Verse 2 — Millard] She married a Harrington, Millard was his name, His mother looked at Nora Lou like she carried some shame, “He went to the seventh grade three times through,” She said it with pride — she meant it true.
The school only reached the seventh grade, The other boys quit, but Millard stayed, Best education a mountain boy could get, Nora Lou never once let him forget.
[Chorus] She was mighty, given where she’d been, Rose up out of nothing to become ordinary again, Ordinary house, ordinary land, Built by her own two hardworking hands. Mighty is the distance, not the size of the crown, Mighty is a woman who wouldn’t go down.
[Verse 3 — The Losing] Millard drank his good years down to the lees, Forty-eight years old when he went to his knees, This ain’t his story, this ain’t his song, Nora Lou’s the one who carried on.
[Verse 4 — The Building] She worked the glove mill, stitched and saved, Dollar by dollar, a future she made, Hired a carpenter, Grover was his name, Paid for the brick house with her own hard-earned gain.
He built it brick by brick, beam by beam, Nora Lou’s house, Nora Lou’s dream, He became Pawpaw, the only one I knew, A brick house that outlasted them both, still true.
[Chorus] She was mighty, given where she’d been, Rose up out of nothing to become ordinary again, Ordinary house, ordinary land, Built by her own two hardworking hands. Mighty is the distance, not the size of the crown, Mighty is a woman who wouldn’t go down.
[Bridge — The Chickens & The Land] Football fields of chicken houses, middle-aged and strong, Land that was hers, where she’d raise ’em all along, No stocks, no bonds, no clever scheme — Just dirt and sweat and a mountain dream. That was rich, by the only measure she knew — Something scratched from nothing, something true.
[Final Chorus] She was mighty, given where she’d been, Rose up out of nothing to become ordinary again, Ordinary house, ordinary land, Built by her own two hardworking hands. Mighty is the distance, not the size of the crown, Mighty is a woman who wouldn’t go down.
[Outro] Mountain mouth and a seventh-grade joke, A widow at forty-eight who never broke, Nora Lou climbed higher than the mountain knew — Mighty and ordinary, both of ’em true.
