BLUE WING written by Tom Russell ( Appears on Dave Alvin’s – “King Of California” ) D He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder D Em might have been a bluebird, I don't know but he’d get stone drunk and talk about Alaska A D salmon boats and 45 below well he got that blue wing in jail at Walla Walla and his cellmate there 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 said it's dark in here, I can't see the sky D A but I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes D G and fly away, beyond these walls D A up above the clouds, where the rain don't fall D G A D on a poor man's dream they parolled blue wing in August in 1963 and he moved on picking apples, to the town of Wenatchee winter finally caught him in a rundown trailer park on the south side of Seattle where the days grow gray and dark and he drank and he dreamt a vision of when the salmon 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 narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing he said it's dark in here ... (repeat REFRAIN/CHORUS) well he drank his way to LA and that's where he died no one knew his Christian name, and there was no one there who cried but I dreamt there was a service, a preacher and an old pine box and halfway through the sermon, blue wing began to talk he said it's dark in here ... (repeat REFRAIN/CHORUS) on a poor man's dream on a poor man's dream [Thanks to Mark Roderick for corrections]