Drive-By Truckers

[fox69]

"Opening Act"

"Opening Act"


There's a big fat man on a mechanical bull in slow motion like Debra Winger
And he gets knocked off and I think he's hurt,
It's a bitch facing facts and figures
There's a band on stage that used to be huge
They sound on but no one's listening
They're told to turn down and they politely oblige
Ain't no such thing as a free ride

It ain't my problem and it ain't my show and I ain't being condescending
It's just the opening slot and I hit my mark and split as the crowd is thinning

The man's on the guest list so I guess it will be alright..

So the paramedics arrive and they haul off that Urban Bovine Kneivel
I see my friend and give him all my money and tell myself it's a necessary evil
And it's all such a fleeting thing so I'd best try and enjoy it
So much beauty and just enough time to figure out how to destroy it

I'm just the opening act

And it ain't my crowd and it ain't my night but I'd be lying if I said I can't relate
I'm just the opening act and the van is packed and I'm hauling ass to another state

And I'm driving north as the sun was rising over a Technicolor horizon
I reached out to touch you but you're not there, a thousand miles away from here
I turned up the radio; heard some preacher talking salvation
My tank is half full and I reached over and changed the station

I'm just the opening act

 

[fox69]

"Outfit"

"Outfit"


You want to grow up to paint houses like me, a trailer in my yard till you're 23
You want to be old after 42 years, keep dropping the hammer and grinding the gears

Well, I used to go out in a Mustang, a 302 Mach One in green.
Me and your Mama made you in the back and I sold it to buy her a ring.
And I learned not to say much of nothing and I figured you already know
But in case you don't or maybe forgot, I'll lay it out real nice and slow

Don't call what your wearing an outfit. Don't ever say your car is broke.
Don't worry about losing your accent, a Southern Man tells better jokes.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister's birthday.
Don't tell them you're bigger than Jesus, don't give it away.

Six months in a St. Florian foundry, they call it Industrial Park.
Then hospital maintenance and Tech School just to memorize Frigidaire parts.
But I got to missing your Mama and I got to missing you too.
So I went back to painting for my old man and I guess that's what I'll always do

So don't try to change who you are boy, and don't try to be who you ain't.
And don't let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy-man's paint.

Don't call what your wearing an outfit. Don't ever say your car is broke.
Don't sing with a fake British accent. Don't act like your family's a joke.
Have fun, but stay clear of the needle, call home on your sister's birthday.
Don't tell them you're bigger than Jesus, Don't give it away.

Don't give it away

 

[fox69]

"Panties In Your Purse"

"Panties In Your Purse"


Saw you standing in the hallway, red plastic cup, and one of them big long
Cigarettes
You asked me if I could play you some Dylan
I said "Dylan who?" and you told me to kiss your ass
I apologized, but you could tell I didn't mean it by the way I rolled my eyes
And when you said it wasn't me it was you
Somehow I knew you were gonna tell me why

Stuff was flying out of the window
Falling and breaking on the pavement underneath
He's screaming at you, red faced and fuming
He'd come home early, parked his car way up the street
You had your stockings in your hand, panties in your purse
It was ten a.m. and all the neighbors heard
Him calling you a whore and a tramp
You just stood there while your heels sank into the warm wet ground

He got a lawyer, you got a bottle
He got the children and you moved in with your mama
She cooks you breakfast and lets you drive her car
She don't care how late you call to tell her where you are
Y'all still fight, she still nags you some
Somehow it's different now than when you were young
It's your own damn fault you been through hell
For one reason or another, seems like she kinda blames herself

 

[fox69]

"Pauline Hawkins"

"Pauline Hawkins"


Don't call me your baby
I won't answer
Love is like cancer
And I am immune

To all that you're bringing
The tune that you're singing
A sign of a locked room
I saw the locked room

It's such an illusion
Before the collision
I made a decision

Don't tell me your secrets
I'd rather not listen
I know what I'm missing
It's always too soon
It's always too soon to be cold for comfort
To belong to someone inside a locked room

But that always happens when nobody's looking (nobody's looking)

I really don't care what's inside you
I wont stand beside you or answer your calls

I don't want to fight now
I'm only here right now
This moment is all
This moment is all

Don't call me your baby
I'm nobody's baby
I won't let you cage me
Or lock me away

I'm not yours to keep
Don't want you to save me
You're just a vacation
A wonder way station
To keep me awake, until I'm ready to sleep
To keep me awake, until I'm ready to sleep
To keep me awake, until I'm ready to sleep

 

[fox69]

"Perfect Timing"

"Perfect Timing"


Here I am again perfect timing,
The strings are ringing and the words are rhyming
I used to hate the fool in me, but only in the morning
Now I tolerate him all day long

Out on the highway, I hear the moaning
That low and lonesome whisper,
You only know from longing,
Through those naked trees at the windows glowing orange,
Taking over that cold shoulder racing by

I might have known before
If I'd got this old before I thought I got too cool to give a damn
That who you see in dreams at night seem to spend their afterlives
Trying hard to live the last one down

Here I am again perfect timing,
The strings are ringing and the words are rhyming
I used to hate the fool in me, but only in the morning,
Now I tolerate him all day long

 

[fox69]

"Plastic Flowers On The Highway"

"Plastic Flowers On The Highway"


He was ready for the big trip, he was moving to the city; he had packed his prize possessions and gave away the rest. He was almost doing ninety, the sky was blue, sun was shining. All the shit, he left behind for the big world waiting there. He was almost out of Leighton, when that phone truck didn't see him. Hit the brake and slided sideways, he never had a chance.

Plastic flowers on the highway. Bits of glass for the machine to sweep away.
Had to pass it on my way to where I'z going. For the next few minutes, I drove a little slower.

Them, M.A.D.D. mothers couldn't help him. He was sober, it was Sunday. He was full of good home cooking when he crashed the savior's door.

Plastic flowers on the highway. A greasy spot on the asphalt for a while.
Every morning, new babies being born, who'll do the best they can to hang around a little while.

My community service had me working for the county
Cutting grass on the off-ramps and medians and such.
Every quarter mile or so, stands a brand new reminder
Another traffic death in town. Something new to cut around.
Crashed out on the highway. Plastic cross and a plastic bouquet.
Paramedics in the by-stander's gaze.

Plastic flowers on the highway. Bits of glass for the machine to sweep away.
Had to pass it on my way to where I'z going.
For the next few minutes I drove a little slower.

 

[fox69]

"Primer Coat"

"Primer Coat"


The old man's out by the swimming pool, he goes there to think
He talks on the phone sometimes, hardly mentions a thing
Said he needed it for his knees, he used to swim back in school
Graduated in 84, quit drinking in 92

He used to call her a basket case for hanging on like she did
The only girl of a foreman's wife She'd never let him forget
It comes to women and they survive but when the same comes to men
Someone comes for their babies something dies there and then

Slinging gravel in parking lots and looking tough on the hood
A girl as plain as a primer coat leaves nothing misunderstood
Her mother and I through trembling lips, a steady hand on his own
The future of every rebel cause, when all the fight in him is gone

My sister's marrying in the spring and everything will be fine
Mama's planning the wedding, Daddy's planning on crying
She's slipping out of her apron strings, you best leave him be
He's staring through his own taillights and gathering speed

 

[fox69]

"Pulaski"

"Pulaski"


She was fresh out of college
The first one in her family to go
and California seemed like heaven,
Pulaski, Tennessee was her home
She worked on losing her southern accent
and turned her back on her Baptist ways
She bought some clothes that barely covered her fair skinned body,
Went to Nashville and caught a plane
The clouds rushed beneath her as the LA smog filled the air
She smiled when the airlock opened
and the Pacific breeze blew through her hair
She thought about the boys from Alabama
Who came into town every Friday night
and drank beer out of big glass quart bottles
and left their trail of blood and tears behind
She thought the men from California would be different
She'd grown up watching them on her TV
But the men she came to know in California
Left her longing for Pulaski, Tennessee
Good ideas always start with a full glass
and just breathing here can make a girl's nose bleed
Dreams here live and die just like a stray dog on a dirt road somewhere in Tennessee
The storefronts all filled up with eyeballs
As the policemen clear out the street
For a line of cars with their headlights burning
Driving slow through Pulaski, Tennessee

 

[fox69]

"Purgatory Line"

"Purgatory Line"


This ain't exactly hell.
It sure as hell ain't heaven.
I love you like the dickens and I miss you like the Devil.
I guess I'll do my time waitin' in this purgatory line.
Angels here are wearin' fancy new perfume,
And all the bread's unleavened.
Well I guess it'll have to do till I find you.
I don't know what I'm doin' here or why
I'm waitin' in this purgatory line.

I ain't exactly up.
I ain't gone too far down.
I'm lookin' for some answers and there ain't no one around.
I guess I'll lose my mind waitin' in this purgatory line.
If Jesus walked on water then where'd he get them shoes?
It just keeps gettin' harder to lose these walkin' blues.
I want you to come and take me home for a while.
Save me from this purgatory line.

Sometimes I can laugh.
Other times I cry.
It ain't exactly funny. My feet are both on fire.
I guess they'll just burn for a while waitin' in this purgatory line.
Lovin' you is so easy, but waitin' here just ain't.
I know I can be patient, but please don't hesitate to cross my mind.
That's all I've got for a while.
Waitin' in this purgatory line.

 

[fox69]

"Puttin' People On The Moon"

"Puttin' People On The Moon"


Mary Alice had a baby and he looked just like I did
We got married on a Monday and I been working ever since
Every week down at the Ford Plant but now they say they're shutting down
Goddamned Reagan in the White House and no one there gives a damn

Double Digit unemployment, TVA be shutting soon
While over there in Huntsville, They puttin' people on the moon

So I took to runnin' numbers for this man I used to know
And I sell a few narcotics and I sell a little blow
I ain't getting rich now but I'm gettin' more than by
It's really tough to make a living but a man just got to try

If I died in Colbert County, Would it make the evening news?
They too busy blowin' rockets, Puttin' people on the moon

Mary Alice quit askin' why I do the things I do
I ain't sayin' that she likes it, but what else I'm gonna do?
If I could solve the world's problems I'd probably start with hers and mine
But they can put a man on the moon
And I'm stuck in Muscle Shoals just barely scraping by

Mary Alice got cancer just like everybody here
Seems everyone I know is gettin' cancer every year
And we can't afford no insurance, I been 10 years unemployed
So she didn't get no chemo so our lives was destroyed
And nothin' ever changes, the cemetery gets more full
And now over there in Huntsville, even NASA's shut down too

Another Joker in the White House, said a change was comin' round
But I'm still workin' at The Wal Mart and Mary Alice, in the ground
And all them politicians, they all lyin' sacks of shit
They say better days upon us but I'm sucking left hind tit
And the preacher on the TV says it ain't too late for me
But I bet he drives a Cadillac and I'm broke with some hungry mouths to feed

I wish I'z still an outlaw, was a better way of life
I could clothe and feed my family still have time to love my pretty wife
And if you say I'm being punished. Ain't he got better things to do?
Turnin' mountains into oceans Puttin' people on the moon

Turnin' mountains into oceans Puttin' people on the moon