1. |
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Well, my name is Reverend Cecil Pritchard
Of the traveling salvation show
And if you care to make a small donation, boys
You're bound to get a hell of a show
And maybe save your everloving souls
Now some crackers like to call it snake oil
Hell, they can call it just what they will
Cause it don't matter a lick to me, boys
Long as it's got that old gospel feel
As long as I get my pockets filled
It's the traveling reverend's old-time revival hour
Collecting converts at the county fair
And if you see me drawing demons from the doctor's pretty daughter
Out behind the ferris wheel
I'm just exorcising the hell out of her
Come on and gather round, brothers and sisters
There's always room for a couple more
You know the Lord don't take no bribes at them pretty pearly gates
But I found a way to even the score
You just slip me a few, I'll sneak you through the back door
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2. |
Girl From the Rodeo
04:11
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I'm coming home to Savannah, mama
To sing my songs to that empty room
There ain't nothing for me in all of Mississippi
'Cept a thousand cigarette butts and a half written tune
My memory's shot from that shit I been smoking
And the bottles of Old Crow on the kitchen floor
But sure as hell, I'm bound to remember
The girl from the rodeo
Hear the women singing "oh, oh" from that old-time station
Coming in from Tupelo
"Oh, oh" I sang to my lover
The girl from the rodeo
It was a town full of carnies and her daddy was a rider
I'd stumbled in from a show in Selma
Pretty as a mare but stubborn as a mule
She took pity on a greenhorn with a dime store guitar
Riding in her pickup and she's playing Hank Williams
Kissing in the darkness of the drive-in show
Sipping straight whiskey out behind the stadium
The girl from the rodeo
(chorus)
But tell me why did she have to up and leave me
As the trees all turned to gold
I guess it ain't easy when you're born to follow that rodeo
(chorus)
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3. |
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Where will my troubles go when they go?
Will they burst like a firecracker from within my soul?
Will they tumble like that old oak tree that the crows all called home?
Where will my troubles go when they go?
I been drinking corn liquor just to get drunk quicker
And drown this lovesick heart
Cause my girl's been seen running round on me
With every man with an electric guitar
But I'll do that woman right, I'll call her sister up tonight
I'll take her from her daddy's farm and I'll take her out behind the barn
Where will my troubles go when they go?
Though I work and plow, they're like a crop that just won't grow
But I feel them cold winds blowing, the country's calling me home
Where will my troubles go when they go?
I been playing Patsy Cline and sipping strong moonshine
For seventeen nights and days
And all my kinfolk are praying and the preacher man is saying
I should change my sinful ways
But I'll bet this broken heart can mend on liquor, lust, and sin
It's my saving grace and I'll be damned if I'll be led astray
Where will my troubles go when they go?
Will they no longer burden this lonesome, broken soul?
Will I hear that freight train coming when it's bound to carry me home?
Where will my troubles go when they go?
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4. |
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©2000, Dave Carter/Dave Carter Music (BMI)
seventeen years she has been in this world
wide-eyed and wistful, pretty little mormon girl
and she don't know i'm wicked, and she don't know i'm old
sweet jesus forgive me but she gets in my soul
'cause she believes in the future and the family tree
and she thinks there's a little spark of good left in me
and she comes to my door 'cause she thinks i can bring her
the glamorous life of a cowboy singer
i rise from my bed to her hand at the bell
i look like the devil and i'm feelin' like hell
but she don't seem to notice and she steps right inside
for to sing me the song that she made up last night
and her voice is shining with the moon and the stars
and she plays so unspoiled on that two-bit guitar
singin' love and tomorrow and thank the redeemer
and i doom and anoint her a cowboy singer
alone in my room when she leaves me again
i stare at the wall and see death closin' in
but i like to imagine i will meet her someday
in a land at the end of this lonesome highway
in a fine high country where the best songs are sung
and the labels don't care if you're old or you're young
and the martins are cheaper, and the pastures are greener
and all of the angels are cowboy singers
yes, and all of the angels are cowboy singers
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5. |
Midnight Train
02:46
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I can hear you weeping low, more a rasp than a whistle
While your smoke is overflowing on that Memphis line
I know your heart is cold but your rails keep burning
Like a catfish that's frying on the skillet
Darlin let me ride through your pouring rain
Baby you are my midnight train
Well by night I breathe your smoke, in the morning spit the coals
And the ashes from my teeth that you left me last night
I drink whiskey on the tracks by the general store
And some days I lay and dream about taking that train for a bride
(chorus)
And when they bury me on a rainy day
Least I can say I rode that train
(chorus)
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6. |
It Took One
04:29
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I think I saw your stepmother
Smoking grass at Midway Park
It weren't her old man but another
She'd been kissing at the bars
God, I felt like shit all Sunday
I think I'll go downtown
But it takes seven shots of whiskey
Three men to haul me out the bar
I've know hundreds of hard luck women
It took one to break my heart
Carolynn I got your number
I know you wrote it on a matchbook sleeve
Heard you was hitched to some plumber
That the bottle runs in his family
But girl I'll take you out next Sunday
To any bar downtown
But it takes seven shots of whiskey
Three men to haul me out the bar
It takes a whole lot to keep me together
It took one to tear me apart
It takes a paycheck worth of malt liquor
A sad song on this old guitar
It ain't the first time I been forsaken
But it was the one that broke my heart
It took one to break my heart
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7. |
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Darlin I heard you leaving in the morning
The floorboards they gave you away
And these walls they haven't stopped talking
The radiator keeps hissing your name
I used to sing you back to me
Each time you'd start for the door
But now you're just an old song I don't sing anymore
Now the night just crawls on her belly
Though the bottle he's been awful kind
I leave the porch light on every evening
If the way is too dark to find
(chorus)
Darlin this living gets awful lonesome
Just playing for beers at the bars
And the women they'll often come and ask me
What two-dollar harlot could break that three-dollar heart?
Well I used to sing her back to me
But now she's just an old song I can't sing anymore
Now you're just an old song I don't sing anymore
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8. |
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My gal is a singer on the road
Just playing gigs and getting stoned
She wrote a real good song bout a man she used to love
My gal is a singer on the road
When my baby plays Memphis tonight
Hope her band gets there alright
Hope the people like her songs, hope she goes to bed alone
When my baby plays Memphis tonight
She says I'm just a flash in the pan
That my records ain't worth a damn
But one day I'll write the tune where I paint her name in blue
Though she says I'm just a flash in the pan
No, she never seems to stick around too long
As wild and reckless as her songs
She left her bottles in the sink and a note I couldn't bring myself to read
No, she never seems to stick around too long
My gal was a singer on the road
But her records never sold
All them songs couldn't pay the bills and man I ain't heard from her in years
My gal was a singer on the road
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9. |
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My name is Jackson Rose and I come from Duluth
I made it to Savannah when I was a youth
I was weary and lonesome from mending this broken heart
Like most wayward men there was a woman to blame
For my travels, my drinking, for hiding my shame
In a one-room apartment in this goddamn dirty town
I got a job hauling freight out to Macon and back
Cutting through them back roads and sneaking sips of Jack
With George Jones singing and that woman weighing on my mind
I stopped into a bar out of Jeffersonville
I got to talking with a man who put my drinks on his bill
Just like me a broken heart had taken him a thousand miles
He said at twenty-two years you've got nothing to fear
You pack up all your bags and then you hit the next town
Boy, you got no troubles that that road can't cure
Sometimes I stay out drinking till late in the night
Till them neon lights and sirens all start to die
And the stained-glass saints all stare from their church house doors
But I can't see the stars for the lights from the bars
And that woman still has a hold of my heart
In this city full of souls hell I've never felt more alone
But at twenty-two years I've got nothing to fear
I'll pack up all my bags and then I'll hit the next town
Cause I got no troubles that that road can't cure
Let it lead where it may even if it's on back to her
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10. |
PBR, Whiskey, and Pot
05:04
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PBR, whiskey, and pot
Darlin that's all I got
But it was always enough to keep you here
But hell they all just let me down
Leave me wandering round this town
Like a rabid dog that's too damn crazy to care
Oh I know they're gonna leave me low and lonesome
They all seem to leave me so damn blue
PBR, whiskey, and pot, and you
The water tower looms
Like a rusted, dead old moon
I swear this whole town's lit by a lonesome 40 watt bulb
I got this coal miner's grin
From a couple fights we were in
You smashed the lamp on the wall and the vase against my skull
(chorus)
I read the letter that you sent
For a carton of cigarettes
And a couple of bucks to get you to the end of the week
But PBR, whiskey, and pot
Babe, that's always all I got
And a lonesome to keep me company
(chorus)
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11. |
Rappahannock RIver Blues
03:12
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Going down to the river to throw myself in
Before I let another woman do me wrong again
Before I let another woman do me wrong again
I'm going down the Rappahanock RIver, mama, throw myself in
Aw but what the hell, no I ain't gonna cry
I'll just lay down by the tracks, hop the first train to roll on by
Hope the first train to roll on by
What the hell, brother, this time I ain't gonna cry
Like them railroad men, I'll drink my weight in wine
I'm-a steal a Bamy mama, get another woman on the side
Steal a Bamy mama, another on the side
And like them Memphis railroad men I'll drink my weight in three-dollar wine
I may look forty-eight but I'm twenty-five years old
But you never give a damn once you make friends with Turkey and Crow
Once you make good friends with Turkey and Crow
I may look forty-eight but babe I'm twenty-five years old
There ain't no turning back from this path I chose
I got the river up ahead, a restless feeling in my bones
Just a restless, old feeling rattling in my bones
There ain't no turning back from this wicked, old path I chose
I ain't never turning back from this wicked, old path I chose
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