Song Album 1. The Road to Bayamon Road to Bayamon 2. Blue

TOM RUSSELL
Song
Album
1.
The Road to Bayamon
Road to Bayamon
2.
Blue Wing
Poor Man’s Dream
3.
Gallo del Cielo
Poor Man’s Dream
4.
Navajo Rug
Poor Man’s Dream
5.
A Bad Half Hour
Cowboy Real
6.
Claude Dallas
Cowboy Real
7.
The Rose of the San Joaquin
The Rose of the San Joaquin
8.
The Sky Abow, The Mud Below
Song of the West
9.
Hallie Lonnigan
Song of the West
10.
Alkali
Song of the West
11.
The Dreamin’
The Man from God Knows Where
12.
Sitting Bull in Venice
The Man from God Knows Where
13.
Where the Dream Begins
Borderland
14.
What Work Is
Borderland
15.
Isaac Lewis
Modern Art
16.
Tijuana Bible
Modern Art
17.
Tonight We Ride
Indians Cowboys Horses and Dogs
18.
Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall?
Immigration Suite
THE ROAD TO BAYAMON
BLUE WING
All You possum-belley queens get out of here
Gypsy's out for blood tonight
She's got love and hate tattooed on her fist
She's drunk and she's ready to fight
He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
might have been a bluebird, I don't know
but he got stone drunk and he talked about
Alaska
salmon boats and 45 below
She used to run a little shot end beer joint
Now she's a jockey on the Astro ride
She took me for a whirl one night
Man it messed me up inside
Ay-Ay-Ay, oh the rain
How long can this rain go on
There's nothing sadder than a carnival
On the road to Bayamon
In a parking lot down in old San Juan
On the road to Bayamon
We set up the tents and the alibi joints
And the freak show from Lyon
We had French Canadian racketeers
And rednecks from down South
And the Puerto Rican pistol boys
With a boa constrictor mouths
Ay-Ay-Ay, oh the rain
How long can this rain go on
There's nothing sadder than a carnival
On the road to Bayamon
Then the wirewalker started drinking hard
The payroll check never came
And somebody stoled a little twoheaded cat
The midway drown in rain
Yeh, it rained through the month of April
And the first two weeks of May
And all across the island
I can hear the children sing
Ay-Ay-Ay, oh the rain
How long can this rain go on
There's nothing sadder than a carnival
On the road to Bayamon
well he got that blue wing at Walla Walla
and his cellmate was a Little Willy John
Willie, he was once a great blues singer
so Wing & Willie wrote him up a song
sang, it's dark in here, can't see the light
but I look at this blue wing when I close my
eyes
and I fly away, beyond these walls
up above the clouds, where the rain don't fall
on a poor man's dreams
well they broke blue wing in August in 1963
and blue wing moved on, picking apples in
the town of Wenatchee
winter finally caught him in a rundown trailer
park
on the south side of Seattle where the days
grow long and dark
and he drank and he dreamt a vision of when
the seven still ran free
and his father's fathers crossed that wide old
Bering sea
the land belonged to everyone, there were old
songs yet to sing
now, it's broken down to a cheap hotel and a
tattooed prison wing
now, it's dark in here ...
well he drank his way to heaven and that's
where he died
and no one knew his Christian name, and
there was no one there who cried
but I dreamt that there was a service, a
preacher in an old pine box
and halfway through the service, the wing
began to talk
he said, it's dark in here ...
GALLO DEL CIELO
Carlos Zaragoza left his home in Casas Grandes when the moon was full
No money in his pocket, just a locket of his sister framed in gold
He rode into El Sueco, stole a rooster called Gallo Del Cielo
Then he swam the Rio Grande with that fighter nestled deep beneath his arm.
El Gallo Del Cielo was a rooster born in heaven so the legends say
His wings they had been broken, he had one eye rollin' crazy in his head
And he'd fought a hundred fights, and the legends say that one night near El Sueco
They'd fought Gallo seven times, and seven times he'd left brave roosters dead.
Hola, my Theresa, I am thinking of you now in San Antonio
I have 27 dollars and the good luck of your picture framed in gold
Tonight I'll put it all on the fighting spurs of Gallo Del Cielo
And then I'll return to buy the land Villa stole from father long ago.
Outside of San Diego, in the onion fields of Paco Monteverde
The Pride of San Diego lay sleeping on a fancy bed of silk
And they laughed when Zaragoza pulled the one-eyed del Cielo from beneath his coat
But they cried when Zaragoza walked away with a thousand dollar bill.
Hola, my Theresa, I am thinking of you now in Santa Barbara
I have fifteen hundred dollars and the good luck of your picture framed in gold
Tonight I'll put it all on the fighting spurs of Gallo Del Cielo
And then I'll return to buy the land Villa stole from father long ago.
Now the moon has gone to hiding and the lantern light spills shadows on a fighting sand
Where a wicked black named Zorro faces Gallo del Cielo in the night
But Carlos Zaragoza fears the tiny crack that runs across his rooster's beak
And he fears he has lost the fifty thousand dollars riding on the fight.
Hola, my Theresa, I am thinking of you now in Santa Clara
Yes, the money's on the table, I am holding to your good luck framed in gold
And everything we've dreamed of is riding on the spurs of Del Cielo
I pray that I'll return to buy the land Villa stole from father long ago.
Then the signal it was given, and the cocks rose together far above the sand
El Gallo del Cielo sunk a gaff into Zorro's shiny breast
They were separated quickly but they rose and fought each other thirty seven times
And the legends say that everyone agreed that del Cielo fought the best.
Then the screams of Zaragoza filled the night outside the town of Santa Clara
As the beak of del Cielo lay broken like a shell within his hand
And they say that Zaragoza screamed a curse upon the bones of Pancho Villa
When Zorro rose up one last time and drove del Cielo through the sand.
Hola, my Theresa, I am thinking of you now in San Francisco
I have no money in my pocket, I no longer have your good luck framed in gold
I buried it last evening with the bones of my beloved Del Cielo
And I'll not return to buy the land Villa stole from father long ago.
Do the rivers still run muddy outside of my beloved Casas Grandes?
Does the scar upon my brother's face turn red when he hears mention of my name?
Do the people of El Sueco curse the theft of Gallo del Cielo?
Well, tell my family not to worry, I will not return to cause them shame.
I suppose a lot of people have heard the story of how I quit the music business and moved to New
York in 1980, with a wife and two little kids, my daughters Jessica and Shannon.
I had a literary agent at William Morris, who was shopping a novel of mine. I wrote about four
manuscripts and they all came close. I ended up in an attic out on Rockaway Beach, very much like
Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I didn't write anything. I went nuts and got a job driving cab. That's
when I met my guitar playing friend Andrew Hardin. He was driving cab.
Well, the funny part of the story: I was driving through Rockaway Park at four in the morning and
picked up Robert Hunter, the Grateful Dead lyricist. He had his guitar and a glass of Jack Daniels.
He'd been doing a solo gig out there. So we're talking, and I tell him I'm songwriter. He says the
usual: "Yeah, sure you are. Sing me one of your songs."
And I had just written "Gallo del Cielo," the long song of mine about rooster fighting. Joe Ely and
Ian Tyson recorded it. Hunter listens intently and smiles. Then he has me sing it again and again.
We're riding around through Queens. He ran up the meter to 300 dollars and demanded a cassette
tape of the song. He loved it. We got back to my house, and I woke up my wife and got a tape. I
took him to the motel. He says he's gonna give it to the Dead or the New Riders or something. Off
he goes. I don't expect to hear from him again, but I enjoyed the ride.
He calls me up a few weeks later, and invites me to a concert at the Bitter End in NYC. Halfway
through the show, I'm standing there half-drunk on his Jack Daniels, and he starts talking about a
song he heard from a cab driver. About a chicken. Then he says, "Ah hell, let's just get him up here
to sing it."
I hadn't played in a year. I was scared. I walked up there and he hands me the guitar and splits. I'm
looking down at five hundred Dead Heads. I sang the song … somehow … it's seven minutes long.
They loved it. I looked around for Hunter and he was still gone. I sang three more. I was a hit. He
came back and hired me and Andrew Hardin to open some shows for him.
And that's what got me back into the music business. Hunter wrote a lot of Grateful Dead classics,
and he wrote with Bob Dylan. Years later, I got a cassette tape of a performance of his in London.
He sings "Gallo del Cielo," and the audience goes nuts, and he says: "That was a song I learned
from a taxi driver in Jamaica Queens!"
Thank you Robert Hunter. I am still on the road.
NAVAJO RUG
Well it's three eggs up on whiskey toast
Homefries on the side
Wash it down with truckstop coffee
Burns up your inside
Just a Canyon, Colorado diner
And a waitress I did love
We sat in the back 'neath an old stuffed bear
And a worn out Navajo rug
Well I saw old Jack about a year ago
He said the place burned to the ground
And all he saved was an old bear tooth
And Katie she left town
But Katie she got her a souvenir too
Jack spat out a tabacco plug
He said "You shoulda seen her runnin' through the
smoke
Draggin' that Navajo rug."
Well old Jack the boss he'd close at six
Then it's Katie bar the door
She'd pull down that Navajo rug
And she'd spread it 'cross the floor
Hey I saw lightning in the sacred mountains
Saw the dance of the turtle doves
Lyin' next to Katie
On that old Navajo rug
Now everytime I cross the sacred mountains
And lightning breaks above
It always takes me back in time
To my long lost Katie love
Ah but everything keeps on movin'
And everyone's on the go
They don't make things that last anymore
Like a double-woven Navajo
Ai-yi-yi, Katie, shades of red and blue
Ai-yi-yi, Katie
Whatever became of the Navajo rug and you?
Katie, shades of red and blue
Ay-yi-yi, Katie
Whatever became of the Navajo rug and you?
THE DREAMIN’
Oh whiskey is the life of man; but whiskey’s mostly water
and it’s whiskey fuels the worker and corrupts his only daughter
The mountain water’s in the still, the copper pipes are steamin’
they’ll soon be whiskey in the glass, and dreamers gone to dreaming
Oh it’s the dreaming, it’s the dreaming
A young girl’s prayer, an old man’s thoughts a reelin’
Two lovers stealin’, the moonlight beamin’
Oh, it’s the dreamin’, it’s the dreamin’
Oh I met her down in Dublin town, like a bottle fly I fell
To the spider in the blackbush of, the old railway hotel
I spun my web from Liffey’s walls, the back rooms down at Whelans
But oh, how sweet my poison now, is drowning in the dreaming
Oh it’s the dreaming, it’s the dreaming
A young girl’s prayer, an old man’s thoughts a reelin’
Two lovers stealin’, the moonlight beamin’
Oh, it’s the dreamin’, it’s the dreamin’
Oh whiskey’s made of water, lads. Barley, corn or malt
and man and woman’s water mixed with poetry and salt
Bring on the pullin’ of the tides, the flash of eyes a gleamin’
then passion blends the elements – the yeast is but the dreaming.
Oh it’s the dreaming, it’s the dreaming
A young girl’s prayer, an old man’s thoughts a reelin’
Two lovers stealin’, the moonlight beamin’
The search for meanin’, leads through the dreamin’
Oh whiskey is the life of man…
WHERE THE DREAM BEGINS
What happened to the kid in the baseball cap?
Well he’s trying to get home but I think he lost the map
What happened to the kid with the braces on his teeth?
He had an autographed picture of Muhammad Ali
He’s just a wise-assed, buck-toothed, near-sighted fool
Always staring at the girls in the swimming pool
Thirty years later and he’s staring again
He’s searching for the place where the dreams begin
Searching for the place where the dream begins
Then he bought a bunch of records and he heard a man sing
He said if I could write a song I believe I’d be a king
But it took him twenty years until he got the nerve
He’s got boxes full of papers and papers full of words
And the words fly away like swallows on the wind
But they never flew back to the nest again
Never took him to the place where the dream begins
Then he finally got married and he had two little girls
But he didn’t see ‘em much cause he had to see the world
And the lie that he told ‘em is I’m like most men
It’s always down the road that the dream begins
And the girls grew up to be pretty and wise
They said “you could have seen the dream by looking in our eyes
You were always living in the world of pretend
You kept running away from where the dream begins
Running away from where the dream begins"
Now he’s living with a woman out on Borderland Road
But her love’s turned bitter, and her eyes turned cold
She said we came to the desert, let the sickness mend
But Hell ain’t the place where the dreams begin
Look out boys I’m gaining on you
He’s old Blind Joe Death in his alligator shoes
He’s got a pocket full of pills and a pint of sloe gin
He’s gonna show you to the place where the dream begins
Follow him down where the dream begins
At the end of the road there ain’t nothing but fear
Just a big old room with a big old mirror
And the man in the mirror his hair’s turning gray
And his hands begin to shake in a funny kind of way
He’s knows everything you bring for to save you soul
Everything denied will condemn you to the hole
With his hand on his heart he picks up his pen
He goes searching for the place where the dream begins
Looking for the place where the dream begins
What happened to the kid in the baseball cap?
He’s trying to get home but I think he’s lost the map.
ISAAC LEWIS
My name is Isaac Lewis, I'm an able bodied man
On the ship the Royal Charter bound off for Van Damien's land
Oh, the sea that took six months to cross we could do in two
So it's up that Mersey river out of Liverpool we flew
And some of us were sailors, all hearties young and old
And some of us were pioneers bound off for the gold
There were merchants and musicians, Christian soldiers of the cross
We stared into that foamy sea, saw our dreams there in the broth
Sail on, Sail on and on and on
My name is Isaac Lewis and this shall be my song
So we landed there in Botany bay and the boys went on the town
And I met a girl named Emma Gray and I loved her up and down
And I swore that I'd return for her, one more tour of sea
But I had to tell my father what he ment to me
For every night I dreamed a dream as the wind swept through the sails
That I was in my father's house back in Northern Wales
And I reached for my father, I said I love You very much
But the ship rolled o'er and the dream was drowned before we got to touch
Sail on, Sail on and on and on
My name is Isaac Lewis and this shall be my song
So I kissed the lips of Emma Gray and set sail for Liverpool
And the parrots perched in the rigging, boys, and the dolphins swam in schools
Our trip it was a pleasant one till we reached the coast of Wales
And one day out from Liverpool God unleashed the gale
Good Lord I've seen some squalls, me boys, and hurricanes at sea
And many nights I'd rediscovered faith on bended knee
But I've never seen it blow so hard we anchored her at last
But the waves rolled o'er the top of us, we had to cut the masts
And all the mining magnates clutched their gold believing they'd be saved
But their bloody creep destroyed them first beneath the angry waves
All the women and the children lost to eternity
Ah, man has tamed and shaped the land, he'll never tame the sea
And every night I had dreamed the dream as the winds swept through the sails
That I was in my father's house back in Northern Wales
And I reached for my father, I said I love You very much
But the ship rolled o'er and the dream was drowned before we got to touch
Sail on, mmm...
My name is Isaac Lewis and this shall be my song
We were caught upon the rocks just ten yards from the shore
And we saw men standing on those rocks, maybe three or more
And I swear I saw my father wawing at me through the squall
And I screamed that I was coming home, that's all that I recall
For the waves they swept me overboard with broken mast and sails
And I drowned where as a child I'd fished on the rocks of Northern Wales
And in three days time I washed upon the white and sandy shore
One hundred yards from Moelfre, my father's white oak door
Sail on, Sail on and on and on
My name is Isaac Lewis and this shall be my song
And some will shout coincidence, or say this can't be true
I only say just tell your loved ones what they mean to you
For you shall sail the seas of life pursuing golden schemes
Yet drown so closely to your home, cradle of your dreams
Sail on, Sail on and on and on
My name is Isaac Lewis and this has been my song
TIJUANA BIBLE
Lana Turner's daughter killed Johnny Stompanato
'cause Johnny beat up Lana down on fifth in Alvarado
The Collins kids were playing rockabilly on the TV
While Johnny rode an icetruck down the brand new harbor freeway
They buried him at sundown with the mariachi band
and a Tijuana Bible in his hand
My office faced McArthur park, it had a perfect bed
I acted once in Dragnet, Lord I got to meet Jack Webb
I'm knew Stompanato secrets, weren't in no Maltese Island
I believe the clues were hidden in that Tijuana Bible
I dug up Stompanato, through six feet of rock and sand
Stole Tijuana Bible from his hand
I got home and cracked the book, it's full of sex cartoons
Daisy Duck and Gary Grant in a Tijuana bedroom
I held it to a candle flame and tried to find the code
I held it there a bit too long the goddam thing exploded
I woke up in the General with a ringing in my ears
And the Tijuana Bible disappeared
TONIGHT WE RIDE
Pancho Villa crossed the border in the year of ought sixteen
The people of Columbus still hear him riding through their dreams
He killed seventeen civilians you could hear the women scream
Blackjack Pershing on a dancing horse was waiting in the wings
Tonight we ride, tonight we ride
We'll skin ole Pancho Villa, make chaps out of his hide
Shoot his horse, Siete Leguas, and his twenty-seven bride
Tonight we ride, tonight we ride
We rode for three long years till Blackjack Pershing called it quits
When Jackie wasn't lookin' I stole his fine spade bit
It was tied upon his stallion, so I rode away on it
To the wild Chihuahuan desert, so dry you couldn't spit
Tonight we ride, you bastards dare
We'll kill the wild Apache for the bounty on his hair
Then we'll ride into Durango, climb up the whorehouse stairs
Tonight we ride, Tonight we ride
When I'm too damn old to sit a horse, I'll steal the warden's car
Break my ass out of this prison, leave my teeth there in a jar
You don't need no teeth for kissin' gals or smokin' cheap cigars
I'll sleep with one eye open, 'neath God's celestial stars
Tonight we rock, Tonight we roll
We'll rob the Juarez liquor store for the Reposado Gold
And if we drink ourselves to death, ain't that the cowboy way to go?
Tonight we ride, tonight we ride
Tonight we fly, we're headin' west
Toward the mountains and the ocean where the eagle makes his nest
If our bones bleach on the desert, we'll consider we are blessed
Tonight we ride, Tonight we ride
WHO’S GONNA BUILD YOUR WALL?
I‘ve got 800 miles of open border – right outside my door.
There’s minute men in little pick up trucks who’ve decleared their own damn war.
Now the government wants to build a barrier like old Berlin 8 feet tall –
But if uncle Sam sends the illegals home who’s gonna build the wall?
Who’s gonna build your wall boys?
Who’s gonna mow your lawn?
Who’s gonna cook your mexican food when your mexican maid is gone?
Who’s gonna wax the floors tonight down at the local mall?
Who’s gonna wash your baby‘s face? Who’s gonna build your wall?
Now I ain’t got no politics so don’t lay that rap on me.
Left wing, right wing, up wing, down wing, I see strip malls from sea to shining sea.
It’s the fat cat white developer who’s created this whole damn squall.
It’s a pyramid scheme of dirty jobs, and who’s gonna build your wall?
Who’s gonna build your wall boys?
Who’s gonna mow your lawn?
Who’s gonna cook your mexican food when your mexican maid is gone?
Who’s gonna wax the floors tonight down at the local mall?
Who’s gonna wash your baby‘s face? Who’s gonna build your wall?
We’ve got fundamentalist moslems, we’ve got fundamentalist jews, we’ve got fundamentalist
christiansThey‘ll blow the whole thing up for you.
But as I travel around this big old world, there’s one thing that I most fear.
It’s a white man in a golf shirt with a cell phone in his ear.
Who’s gonna build your wall boys?
Who’s gonna mow your lawn?
Who’s gonna cook your mexican food when your mexican maid is gone?
Who’s gonna wax the floors tonight down at the local mall?
Who’s gonna wash your baby‘s face? Who’s gonna build your wall?