It was late in the evenin', just a few of us pickin' But the lady she played so easy and fine And the chords that she strummed were so tastefully clever They planted this song in my mind 'Cause there's somethin' so feminine about a mandolin The way that they feel, the way that they ring Just to see slender fingers, movin' so quickly Made this boy want to sing And when I get older and I have a daughter I'll teach her to sing and play her my songs And I'll tell her some stories I can barely remember And hope that she will sing along And maybe one day she'll take a fancy to pickin' 'Cause when that bug bites you, you live with the sting And if she could just strum a few simple measures She could make some young man sing 'Cause there's somethin' so feminine about a mandolin Way that they feel, the way that they ring And that evenin' in a pasture somewhere near Austin That mandolin made me sing Her mandolin made me sing