Raking leaves, raking leaves, Why do I have to rake the leaves? When I was a child, oh fall was fun to me, For lots of leaves meant fun and games.

Large piles of leaves all raked up, Run and dive into them and scatter them out, Kids, look what you have done! Was the scream poppa did make.

For every Saturday in the fall, As soon as the leaves began to fall, Poppa had to rake the front yard, Rake those leaves down out of the way.

Didn't matter how few, But rake those leaves he had to do, For we could not have dead leaves in our front yard. So rake them off east of the grape arbor.

And when all of those giant majestic maples were bare, All had shed their leaves, as it was fall, All those maple leaves, Were raked over to the garden there in a pile.

Large thick, deep piles of dry leaves, For me to dive into and spread all around. Push them together and do it again, Every evening after school, play in that pile of leaves.

Then after they had all dried, One Saturday it was leaf burning time, Early on Saturday morning Poppa would light the fire And the leaves would burn, smolder, stink all through the day.

As they burned, you had to stir them up, Turn the damn ones over to burn, And then as dusk came around, Make sure that the leaves had burned out.

Those were the days oh yes indeed, Days of a young boy, who liked to play, Days of fun and silly games, As Poppa raked leaves each Saturday.

But then I became old enough, and I had to rake. Then as I became a man, my own yard I had to rake. And I would stand and my two sons watch As they did play in the leaves and I did watch.