Emmylou Harris: Red Dirt Girl

Me and my best friend Lillian 
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon,
Sittin on the front porch cooling in the shade
Singin every song the radio played
Waitin for the Alabama sun to go down
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town 
Me and Lillian
Just across the line and a little southeast of Meridian.

She loved her brother I remember back when 
He was fixin up a '49 Indian
He told her 'Little sister, gonna ride the wind
Up around the moon and back again"
He never got farther than Vietnam,
I was standin there with her when the telegram come
For Lillian.
Now he's lyin somewhere about a million miles from Meridian.

She said there's not much hope for a red dirt girl 
Somewhere out there is a great big world
Thats where I'm bound
And the stars might fall on Alabama
But one of these days I'm gonna swing 
My hammer down
Away from this red dirt town
I'm gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard,
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in
Across a red dirt line just a little south east from Meridian

She tried hard to love him but it never did take
It was just another way for the heart to break
So she learned to bend
But one thing they don't tell you about the blues
When you got em
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't know end. 
At least not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid,
She was only 27 and she had five kids.
Coulda' been the whiskey,
Coulda been the pills, 
Coulda been the dream she was trying to kill.
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world 
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl
Names Lillian
Who never got any farther across the line than Meridian.

Now the stars still fall on Alabama
Tonight she finally laid 
That hammer down
Without a sound
In the red dirt ground

Beachcombing

Mark Knopfler--who?---the guy from Dire Straits--oh yeah! him!--I love him!...he's been hooking up with some really good singers and songwriters since his broke up his band. It was getting too big. It wasn't a musical experience anymore. How much money do you really need?

That's the thing about bands like the Stones and U2. It's like cancer. It just grows to monstrous proportions and ceases to be music or art, it's just an event.

Anyway, Knopfler's been working with some serious people, and none are more serious than Emmylou Harris. She is a national treasure. Her voice is so beautiful, and you match that up with her natural instincts of interpretation, and as they would say about Sinatra, she could sing the phone book (remember what phone books were?) and it would sound great.

Listen to this song. It's opening and the melody that follows through the song are reminiscent of Dire Straits, of course it is. Knopfler is left-handed, but plays the guitar as a righty. His strong hand is playing the chords and notes on the fret board, and it allows him to really give some vibrato. And he doesn't use a pick, or even his fingernails on his strumming and plucking hand; that's how he gets that unique sound of his. (I read it in the Rolling Stone. Yep, I'm still reading that old rag, which really isn't much more than People Magazine for rock stars now.)

And then Emmylou (can I call you by your first name?) enters the song, just like she's walking into a room, and his deep voice and her soprano just jell, and I think it's because you have two stellar musicans there who really know what they're doing. Again, Emmylou Harris's strength is how she can interpret; she just seems to know exactly what to deliver. And I've heard that she just stands her ground and does what she wants. And now she's the Queen, so producers just do what she says.

And those lyrics are so sweet; Knopfler is a fantastic storyteller. His songs have always been like short stories or plays, with beginnings and middles and climaxes and anticlimaxes. And this is filled with metaphor and images paint the picture of a life washed up on shore.

They say there’s wreckage washing up
all along the coast
No one seems to know too much
Or who got hit the most
Nothing has been spoken
There’s not a lot to see
But something has been broken
that’s how it feels to me

We had a harmony
I never meant to spoil
Now it's lying in the water
Like a slick of oil
The tide is running out to sea
Under a darkening sky
The night is falling down on me
And I‘m thinking that I

Should head on home
Been gone too long
Leave my roaming
Beachcombing


Little wild kitten out hunting
To see what he can get
You’re in a big city now
won’t stop growing yet
The sun is going down smoking
A flaming testament
Something has been broken
And it feels permanent

Little seabird flying
He knows where he wants to go
Guess i ought to pack my stuff
And do the thing I know
I turn around and head on back
Along the old sea wall
I felt something give and crack
And now I’m sorry that’s all

Head on home
Been gone too long
Leave my roaming
Beachcombing

Return of the Grievous Angel

how come the good ones all seem so damn crazy...and how come they die so young?

Won't you scratch my itch sweet Annie Rich
And welcome me back to town
Come out on your porch or I'll step into your parlor
And I'll tell you how it all went down

Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels
And a good saloon in every single town

Oh, and I remember something you once told me
And I'll be damned if it did not come true
Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

`Cause I headed West to grow up with the country
Across those prairies with the waves of grain
And I saw my devil,
and I saw my deep blue sea
And I thought about a calico bonnet from
Cheyenne to Tennessee

We flew straight across that river bridge,
last night at half past two
The switchman wave his lantern goodbye and good day
as we went rolling through
Billboards and truckstops pass by the grievous angel
And now I know just what I have to do

And the man on the radio won't leave me alone
He wants to take my money for something
that I've never been shown

And I saw my devil,
and I saw my deep blue sea
And I thought about a calico bonnet from
Cheyenne to Tennessee

The news I could bring I met up with the king
On his head an amphetamine crown
He talked about unbuckling that old bible belt
And lit out for some desert town

Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels
And a good saloon in every single town

Oh, but I remembered something you once told me
And I'll be damned if it did not come true
Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

Two More Bottles of Wine

Well I'm sixteen hundred miles from the people I know,
I've been doin' all I can but opportunity sure comes slow,
Thought I'd be in the sun all day,
But I'm sweeping out a warehouse in west LA,

But it's all right, 'cause it's midnight,
And I got two more bottles of wine,
Yes, it's all right, 'cause it's midnight
And I got two more bottles of wine.