Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Kinas
-to the Willie & Waylen / Ed Bruce tune
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kinas,
Don’t let ‘em run meetings or searches too much,
Let ‘em be milkmaids and barmaids and such.
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kinas,
They’ll never set still, no they always will roam,
Even from somewhere they love.
v1.
Kinas are easy to love but they’re harder to keep,
They’re sought for their skill at administering cattle and sheep.
They polish their titles and cinch up their Bibles
and round their department herds in,
But when the weather turns chill and the dollars blow south,
Kinas are gone with the wind.
chorus
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kinas,
Don’t let ‘em be leaders like Golda Meir,
Let ‘em be scholars like Brittany Spears.
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kinas,
They’ll never set still, no they always will roam,
Even from somewhere they love.
v2.
Kinas like Tennessee waltzes and Kentucky moonshine,
Mint juleps and tulips and cowlicks and Deputy Dawg;
Them that work with her can’t figure if she’s a
Saint Joan or an Eva Peron,
‘Cause on one hand she cut faculty workshop by a day,
On the other she still makes you go.
chorus 2
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kinas,
Don’t let ‘em bark orders and talk back to Jud,
Let ‘em be shy and compliant as mud.
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kinas,
They’ll never set still, no they always will roam,
Even from somewhere they love.
v3.
Kinas are almost as able as Ladybird Johnson,
Kinas are nearly as knowing as Atticus Finch;
But under that southern demeanor resides a
tactician like Robert E. Lee,
And when she sidles up to you with a shucks and a smile,
You get committeed again.
key change—half step
v4.
Kinas are precious to find but they’re painful to lose,
There’s none better suited for telling the falses from trues;
And maybe you’ll say you won’t miss her and maybe
you’ll practice forgetting her name;
But whenever someone gets their britches in a bunch about the
busted budgets of Irv Levy—
Kina will be here that way.
final chorus
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kinas,
Don’t let ‘em run meetings or searches too much,
Let ‘em be ranch hands and farm hands and such.
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kinas,
They’ll never set still, no they always will roam—
Roam from a place where she’s loved.
mws 