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]
