Blue Wing

written by Tom Russell

(as heard on the album, "KING OF CALIFORNIA" by Dave Alvin)

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

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

REFRAIN/CHORUS

(no chord) D G

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 ... (repeat REFRAIN/CHORUS)

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 ... (repeat REFRAIN/CHORUS)

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' transcribed by Brad Mahugh bmahugh@ix.netcom.com '

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Brad Mahugh

e-mail:bmahugh@ix.netcom.com