I Never Picked Cotton

I Never Picked Cotton is a country song by Roy Clark, from the album of the same title.

It is sung in first-person narrative by a man who grew up in an Oklahoma family of sharecroppers, the father having died at a young age working in a coal mine (the cause of death not told).

He vows he will "never pick cotton/like my mother did, and my brother did, and my sister did". He fulfills his promise, financing a hedonistic lifestyle via criminal activity.

One Saturday night in Memphis, he is accosted and insulted by a redneck and retaliates by killing the man. He is convicted of murder and will be executed the next morning via hanging. As he reflects on his life, he admits "there's not a [expletive] of a lot that I can look back on with pride" - except he kept his vow that we would "never pick cotton".