My father always promised us   That we would live in France   We'd go boating on the Seine   And I would learn to dance      We lived in Ohio then   He worked in the mines   On his dreams like boats   We knew we would sail in time      All my sisters soon were gone   To Denver and Cheyenne   Marrying their grownup dreams   The lilacs and the man      I stayed behind the youngest still   Only danced alone   The colors of my father's dreams   Faded without a sound      And I live in Paris now   My children dance and dream   Hearing the ways of a miner's life   In words they've never seen      I sail my memories of home   Like boats across the Seine   And watch the Paris sun   As it sets in my father's eyes again      My father always promised us   That we would live in France   We'd go boating on the Seine   And I would learn to dance      I sail my memories of home   Like boats across the Seine   And watch the Paris sun   As it sets in my father's eyes again