Red Dirt Girl

Me and my best friend Lillian

And her blue tick hound dog Gideon

Sittin' on the front porch coolin' in the shade

Singin' every song the radio played

Waitin' for the Alabama sun to go down

Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town

Me and Lillian

Just across the line

And a little southeast of Meridian

She loved her brother I remember back when

He was fixin' up a '49 Indian

He told her, ?Little sister, gonna ride the wind

Up around the moon and back again"

He never got farther than Vietnam

I was standin' there with her

When the telegram come for Lillian

Now he's lyin' somewhere

About a million miles from Meridian

She said, ?There's not much hope for a red dirt girl

Somewhere out there is a great big world

That's where I'm bound"

"And the stars might fall on Alabama

But one of these days I'm gonna swing

My hammer down"

Away from this red dirt town

I'm gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin

Buried that old dog Gideon

By a crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard

Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard

Got in trouble with a boy from town

Figured that she might as well settle down

So she dug right in

Across a red dirt line

Just a little south east of Meridian

Yes, she tried hard to love him

But it never did take

Just another way for the heart to break

So she learned ...

One thing they don't tell you about the blues

When you got 'em

You keep on fallin' 'cause there ain't no bottom

There ain't no end at least not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid

She was only 27 and she had five kids

Could-a been the whiskey, could-a been the pills

Could-a been the dream she was tryin' to kill

But there won't be a mention in the new little world

About the life and the death of a red dirt girl

Named Lillian

Who never got any farther

Across the line than Meridian

Now the stars still fall on Alabama

Tonight she finally laid

That hammer down without a sound

In the red dirt ground