Ballad of Lewis Baker
Lyrics: Tim Brown. Music: Graham Snow
Vocal, guitars and programming: Graham Snow
In the early nineteen hundreds down Lawrence County way
Working in the quarries was how you earned your pay
Lewis Baker was a carver and a good one so it’s told
The stress of carving took him when he was twenty one years old
Bedford, Indiana was the place that he called home
And Lewis earned his living making carvings out of stone
It was limestone work that killed him, and limestone gave him fame
For the monument in Bedford, that bears young Baker’s name
The other carvers liked him, and mourned that he was gone
They took the block of limestone that he’d been working on
They carved a fitting tribute, so we’d remember him
A copy of his workbench, just the way that it had been
His blueprints and carving tools the way he’d left them there
Even little mounds of dust, reproduced with loving care
From far and wide, people come, to see this work of art
And remember Lewis Baker, a man of noble heart
Bedford, Indiana was the place that he called home
And Lewis earned his living making carvings out of stone
It was limestone work that killed him, and limestone gave him fame
For the monumental tombstone, that bears young Baker’s name
At night in Greenhill Cemetary, when a chill is in the air
You might see a ghostly figure, standing near his workbench there
Lewis Baker was a carver and a good one so it’s told
The stress of carving took him when he was twenty one years old
Bedford, Indiana was the place that he called home
And Lewis earned his living making carvings out of stone
It was limestone work that killed him, and limestone gave him fame
For the monumental tombstone, that bears young Baker’s name
For the monument in Bedford, that bears young Baker’s name
