Red Dirt Girl

Album: Red Dirt Girl (2000)
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  • Me and my best friend Lillian
    And her blue tick hound dog Gideon,
    Sittin' on the front porch cooling 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 from Meridian

    She tried hard to love him but it never did take
    It was just another way for the heart to break
    So she dug right in.
    But one thing they don't tell you about the blues
    When you got em
    You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
    There ain't know 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 trying to kill.
    But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
    About the life and the death of a red dirt girl
    Names 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 Writer/s: EMMYLOU HARRIS
    Publisher: Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 4

  • Michael Barnes from North CarolinaIn the fourth verse, it is not "she dug right in". Instead, it's "she tried to fit in"
  • AnonymousThe tune is very much like a Gordon Lightfoot song, as are some of the words.
  • Jj from AtlantaI love this album. Daniel Lanois was the perfect match for her. So hard hitting, and heart-felt.
    My favorite will always be Sally Rose, but few have had a run like our Emmylou!
  • Bill from UsSo many beautiful albums, and then she came out with this one, she wrote! read the lyrics to this song, it doesn't even need music, and yet with the melody, amazing! It's like an updated Harper Lee novel condensed into a poem! She (Emmylou) left Alabama long ago, but really never did!
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