"Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper's Dream)" is a song written by

Rodney Crowell Rodney Crowell (born August 7, 1950) is an American musician, known primarily for his work as a singer and songwriter in country music. Crowell has had five number one singles on Hot Country Songs, all from his 1988 album '' Diamonds & Dirt''. ...

and recorded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

band

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (sometimes abbreviated NGDB), also known as the Dirt Band, is an American band founded in Long Beach, California, in 1966. Since 2018, the band has consisted of Jeff Hanna and his son Jaime Hanna, both guitarists and voc ...

. It was released in May 1984 as the lead single from the album, ''

Plain Dirt Fashion ''Plain Dirt Fashion'' is the fifteenth studio album by American country folk group Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, released in 1984 by the record label Warner Bros. Records. This album went to #8 on the US Country charts. The three singles from this al ...

''. The song was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's first (of three) No. 1 songs on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

Hot Country Singles Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...

chart.

Content

The song is told through the eyes of the son of a

sharecropper Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...

, who along with his family was forced to work long, hard hours in a cotton field for little pay. Now a grown man, the main protagonist's memories of childhood are mainly pleasant, such as singing songs along with his grandmother's radio, hearing his mother read from the Bible and always having food to eat. However, his dreams take him to a better life: :"''Someday I was dreamin' that a song that I was singin :"''Takes me down the road to where I want to go.'' :"''Now I know, it's a long hard road.''" Years later, the protagonist has now apparently made it big in his chosen field (perhaps in music, as implied by the lyrics), and has the opportunity to reflect on his childhood. Here, he realizes he didn't have it so bad in the cotton fields and having the warmth and security of his family close by. As he bemoans missing things that marked his childhood — watching lightning bugs dance in the rain, listening to the raindrops beat on the tin roof of his log cabin home and hearing his parents make music with makeshift instruments — he is resigned to living out his dream, which he is determined to make come true.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{authority control 1984 singles 1984 songs Nitty Gritty Dirt Band songs Songs written by Rodney Crowell Song recordings produced by Paul Worley Warner Records singles