GUY CLARK
OLD NO. 1
(RCA Victor APL1-1303)
November/1975
Produced by Neil Wilburn
Jimmy Colvard, Dick Feller, Steve Gibson, Reggie Young, Chip Young - guitar
Hal Rugg - steel/dobro
Jack Hicks - dobro
Mike Leech - bass
Jerry Carrigan, Larry Londin, Jerry Kroon - drums
Johnny Gimble, Tommy Williams - fiddle/violin
David Briggs, Charles Cochran, Shane Keister - piano/keyboards
Mickey Raphael - harmonica
Background vocals:
Lea Jane Berinati, Pat Carter, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris,
Sammi Smith, Florence Warner, Gary White
Recorded:
1975, RCA Victor Studio, Nashville
1.
TEXAS 1947
(Guy Clark)
« © '75 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
Bein' six years old I had seen some trains before
So it's hard to figure out what I'm at the depot for
Things're big and black and smokin' steam screamin' at the wheels
Bigger'n anything there is last that's the way she feels
Trains're big and black and smokin' louder'n July 4th
But everybody's actin' like this might be something more
Than just pickin' up the mail or the soldiers from the war
Somethin' even old man Wileman never seen before
And it's late afternoon on a hot Texas day
Somethin' strange was goin' on and we's all in the way
Now there's fifty or sixty people just sittin' on their cars
And the ole men left their domioes and come down from the bars
Everybody's checkin' old Jack Kittrell checks his watch
And us kids put our ears to the rails to hear 'em pop
So we already knowed it when they finally said train time
You'd've thought that Jesus Christ himself is rollin' down the line
Cause things got real quiet and mama jerked me back
But not before I got the chance to lay a nickel on the track oh
Look out here she comes she's comin' look out there she goes she's gone
Screamin' straight through Texas like a mad dog cyclone
Big and red and silver she don't make no smoke
She's a fast rollin' streamline come to show the folks
I said look out here she comes she's comin'
Look out there she goes she's gone
Screamin' straight through Texas like a mad dog cyclone
[ dobro ]
Lord she never even stopped
She left fifty or sixty people still sittin' on their cars
Wonderin' what it's comin' to and how it got this far
But me I got a nickel smashed flatter than a dime
By a mad dog runaway red silver streamline train
Look out here she comes she's comin'...
Look out here she comes she's comin'...
Look out here she comes she's comin'...
**********
2.
DESPERADOS WAITING FOR THE TRAIN
(Guy Clark)
« © '73 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
I'd play the Red River Valley and he'd sit in the kitchen and cry
And run his fingers through seventy years of livin'
And wonder Lord has every well I drilled gone dry
We was friends me and this old man
We're like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train
He's a drifter and a driller of oil wells and an old school man of the world
He taught me how to drive his car when he's too drunk to
And he'd wink and give me money for the girls
And our lives was like some old western movie
Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train
From the time that I could walk he'd take me with him
To a bar called the Green Frog Cafe
And there was old men with beer guts and dominos
Lyin' bout their lives while they'd play
And I was just a kid they all called his sidekick
Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train
One day I looked up and he's pushin' eighty
And there's brown tobacco stains all down his chin
Well to me he's one of the heroes of this country
So why's he all dressed up like them old men
Drinkin' beer and playin' moon and forty-two
Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train
And the day before he died I went to see him
I was grown and he was almost gone
So we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen
And sang another verse to that old song
Come on Jack I swear this time it's comin'
And we're like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train
Like desperados waiting for the train like desperados waiting for the train
**********
3.
COAT FROM THE COLD
(Guy Clark)
« © '75 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
I found comfort and courage in bottles of whiskey
I swear to you friends that that life is some risky
I have backed away quickly from those who tried to burn me
And stopped up my ears that no one should learn me
But the lady beside me is the one I have chosen
To walk through my life like a coat from the cold
I have flown like a bird from each cage that confined me
And broken every one of the ties that bind me
And I have danced me around some sad ol' situations
And taken my share of them sweet temptations
But the lady beside me is the one I have chosen
To walk through my life like a coat from the cold
To walk through my life like a coat from the cold
**********
4.
INSTANT COFFEE BLUES
(Guy Clark)
« © '75 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
He washed all the road dirt from his face and from his neck
And sat down at her table and she picked up his check
And she took him home for reasons that she did not understand
And him he had the answers but did not play his hand
Cause him he knew the taste of this wine very well
It all goes down so easy but the next day is hell
Morning man was I drunk she wispered in the shower
While he lay there and smoked his way there through the final hour
And she felt wholly empty like she'd felt it every time
And he was feeling just the same cept he was tryin' to make it rhyme
Time was of the essence so they both did their best
To meet up in the kitchen feeling fully dressed
She just had to go to work and he just had to go
And she knew where and he knew how to blow it off and so
They shot the breeze quite cavalier to the boilin' of the pot
And sang the instant coffee blues and never fired a shot
And him he hit the driveway with his feelin's in a case
And her she hit the stoplight and touched up her face
So you tell them the difference between caring and not
And that it's all done with mirrors lest they forgot
I said it's all done with mirrors of which they have none
To blend the instant coffee blues into the morning sun
**********
5.
LET HIM ROLL
(Guy Clark)
« © '75 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
He's a wino tried and true done about everything there is to do
He worked on freighters he worked in bars he worked on farms he worked on cars
It was white port that put that look in his eye
That grown men get when they need to cry
And he sat down on the curb to rest and his head just fell down on his chest
He said every single day it gets just a little bit harder to handle and yet
And he lost the thread and his mind got cluttered
And the words just rolled off down in the gutter
He was elevator man in a cheap hotel in exchange for the rent on a one room cell
He's old in years beyond his time thanks to the world and the white Port wine
So he says son he always called me son he said life for you has just begun
And he told me a story that I heard before how he fell in love with a Dallas whore
Well he could cut through the years to the very night
When it ended in a whore house fight
And she turned his last proposal down in favor of being a girl about town
Now it's been seventeen years right in line and he ain't been straight none of the time
Too many days of fightin' the weather and too many nights of not being together
And so he died
[ ac.guitar ]
Well when they went through his personal affects
In among the stubs from the welfare checks
Was a crumblin' picture of a girl in a door an address in Dallas and nothin' more
The welfare people provided the priest a couple from the mission down the street
Sang Amazing Grace and no one cried cept some lady in black way off to the side
We all left and she was standin' there black veil covering her silver hair
And ol' ene-eyed John said her name was Alice and she used to be a whore in Dallas
So let him roar Lord let him roll bet he's gone to Dallas rest his soul
Just to let him roll Lord let him roar
He always said that heaven was just a Dallas whore
Let him roar Lord let him roll bet he's gone to Dallas rest his soul
**********
6.
RITA BALLOU
(Guy Clark)
« © '75 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
She could dance that slow Uvalde shuffle to some cowboy hustle
How she made them trophy buckles shine shine shine
Wild eyed and Mexican silvered trickin' dumb ol' cousin Willard
Into thinkin' that he's got her this time
Hill country honky tonkin' Rita Ballou
Every beer joint in town has played a fool for you
Backslidin' barrel ridin' Rita Ballou
Ain't a cowboy in Texas would not ride a bull for you
She's a rawhide rope and velvet mixture walkin' talkin' Texas texture
High-timin' barroom fixture kind of a girl
She's the queen of the cowboys look at old Willard grinning now boys
You'd of thought there's less fools in this world
Hill country honky tonkin' Rita Ballou...
[ guitar ]
So good luck Willard and here's to ya
And here's to Rita and I hope she'll do ya right all night
Lord I wish I was the fool in your shoes
Hill country honky tonkin' Rita Ballou...
Hill country honky tonkin' Rita Ballou...
**********
7.
L.A. FREEWAY
(Guy Clark)
« © '75 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
Pack up all your dishes make note of all good wishes
Say goodbye to the landlord for me that son of a bitch has always bored me
Throw out them LA papers and that moldy box of vanilla wafers
Adios to all this concrete gonna get me some dirt road back street
If I can just get off of this LA freeway without gettin' killed or caught
I'd be down that road in a cloud of smoke
To some land that I ain't bought bought bought
Here's to you old skinny Dennis only one I think I will miss
I can hear that old bass singing sweet and low like a gift you're bringin'
Play it for me one more time now got to give it all we can now
I beleive everything you're saying just keep on keep on playing
If I can just get off of this LA freeway...
And you put the pink card in the mailbox leave the key in the old front door lock
They'll find it likely as not I'm sure there's somethin' we have forgot
Oh Susanna don't you cry babe love's a gift that's surely handmade
We've got something to believe in don'tcha think it's time we're leavin'
If I can just get off of this LA freeway...
If I can just get off of this LA freeway...
So pack up all your dishes make note of all good wishes
Say goodbye to the landlord for me that son of a bitch has always bored me
[ ac.guitar - fiddle - harmonica ]
**********
8.
SHE AIN'T GOIN' NOWHERE
(Guy Clark)
« © '75 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
Standing on the goneside of leaving
She found her thumb and stuck it in the breeze
She'll take anything that's going close to somewhere
She can lay it down and live it like she please
But she ain't going nowhere she's just leavinng
She ain't going nowhere she can't breathe in
She ain't going home and that's for sure
She's not sittin' down and crying on her suitcase
She has no second thoughts by the road
But she's got feelings that need some repairing
And she did not give a damn that it showed
But she ain't going nowhere...
[ steel - piano ]
The wind had its way with her hair and the blues had their way with her smile
And she had a way of her own like prisoners have a way with a file
But she ain't going nowhere...
She ain't going nowhere...
And she ain't going home and that's for sure
**********
9.
NICKEL FOR THE FIDDLER
(Guy Clark)
« © '72 World Song Publishing, ASCAP »
Well it's a nickel for the fiddler it's a nickel for his tune
It's a nickel for the tambourine kind of afternoon
And it's a high holiday on the 21st of June
And it's country music in the park and everybody's ruined
[ fiddle - dobro ]
Well it's fountains full of dogs and kids and it's freaky apple pie
And it's the ones who came to play and the ones just passin' by
And it's coats of many colors and it almost makes me cry
Lord it's ice cream on a stick and it's something you can buy
[ guitar - fiddle ]
Well it's a fiddler from Kentucky who swears he's 83
And he's fiddled every contest from here to Cripple Creek
And it's old ones and it's yound ones and it's plain they half agreed
But it's country music in the park as far as they can see
[ dobro - fiddle ]
Well it's a nickel for the fiddler...
[ harmonica - fiddle ]
**********
10.
THAT OLD TIME FEELIN'
(Guy Clark)
« © '75 World Song Publishing, ASCAP / Royal Oak Music, ASCAP »
And that old time feelin' goes sneaking down the hall
Like an old gray cat in winter keepin' close to the wall
And that old time feelin' comes stumbling up the street
Like an old salesman kickin' the papers from his feet
And that old time feelin' draws circles around the block
Like old women with no children holding hands with the clock
And that old time feelin' falls on its face in the park
Like and old wino prayin' he can make it until it's dark
And that old time feelin' comes and goes in the rain
Like an old man with his checkers dying to find a game
And that old time feelin' plays for beer in bars
Like and old blues-time picker who don't recall who you are
And that old time feelin' limps through the night on a crutch
Like an old soldier wondering if he's paid too much
And that old time feelin' rocks and spits and cries
Like an old lover rememberin' the girl with the clear blue eyes
[ guitar ]
And that old time feelin' goes sneaking down the hall
Like an old gray cat in winter keepin' close to the wall
**********