Copperline

Album: New Moon Shine (1991)
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  • Even the old folks never knew
    Why they call it like they do
    I was wondering since the age of two
    Down on Copperline
    Copper head, copper beech
    Copper kettles sitting side by each
    Copper coil, cup o'Georgia peach
    Down on Copperline
    Half a mile down to Morgan Creek
    Leaning heavy on the end of the week
    Hercules and a hog-nosed snake
    Down on Copperline
    We were down on Copperline

    One Summer night on the Copperline
    Slip away past supper time
    Wood smoke and moonshine
    Down on Copperline
    One time I saw my daddy dance
    Watched him moving like a man in a trance
    He brought it back from the war in France
    Down onto Copperline
    Branch water and tomato wine
    Creosote and turpentine
    Sour mash and new moon shine
    Down on Copperline
    Down on Copperline

    First kiss ever I took
    Like a page from a romance book
    The sky opened and the earth shook
    Down on Copperline
    Down on Copperline
    Took a fall from a windy height
    I only knew how to hold on tight
    And pray for love enough to last all night
    Down on Copperline
    Day breaks and the boys wakes up
    And the dog barks and the birds sings
    And the sap rises and the angels sigh, yeah

    I tried to go back, as if I could
    All spec house and plywood
    Tore up and tore up good
    Down on Copperline
    It doesn't come as a surprise to me
    It doesn't touch my memory
    Man I'm lifting up and rising free
    Down on over Copperline
    Half a mile down to Morgan Creek
    I'm only living for the end of the week
    Hercules and a hog-nosed snake
    Down on Copperline, yeah
    Take me down on Copperline
    Oh, down on Copperline
    Take me down on Copperline Writer/s: James Taylor, Reynolds Price
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 6

  • Sally Gilmore from Joplin, MissouriYou can't get any better than James Taylor. He is the greatest!!!!!
  • Bill Morris from Kansas City Or ThereaboutsThis song is in my regular set list, and is always well received by the audience.
  • Tommy C from Los Angeles, CaLove this song because it could well have been said about my home in the hills of West Virginia. The coal mining, the farming, and the familiarity of a quiet, peaceful hillbilly community among the rivers and streams, shacks that were HOME to so many of us. Appalachia! Live Forever! I’m longing for home again!
  • Jim from Oh….and the angels sigh
  • Frankd from Reseda, CaGreat song and maybe another lyric in Sandy's comments. The farms and ranches of our childhood are all covered with asphalt and concrete now.
  • Sandy from Enterprise, FlOne of my all-time faves. How cool that JT wrote an evocative song about something so many of us feel, but never gets said. How many people re-visit their childhood home, only to find it "tore up, tore up good?" Ah, progress in America! More shopping malls, more subdivisions, more roads, more 7-11s, more of everything but less open space, less childhood play, less water, less woods, less peace, less quiet. All in the name of "growth." Which simply means, political greed.
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