Drive-By Truckers Album

I do believe I do believe
I do believe I saw you standing there
Sunlight in your hair
Reflecting in your eyes
I was only five years old
Riding in your top-down Mustang
Taking me out to the beach
Your eyes matched the skies
I believe I saw your shadow looking like 1967
Percy Sledge on the radio
Or maybe Spanish songs
All my troubles swept away
The ocean on my scraped up knees
You could never stand to be away from me too long
I do believe I do believe I know that you would never leave me
And when you slipped the earthly binds you still live in my mind
And when I'm gone, again I'll find
My way back into your kitchen
And see you standing there in the window's shine
I do believe I do believe
You're standing there in emerald green
In the afternoon
Oh so long ago
For Sissy!

He packed a big-ass church out near Rogersville
He drove the Cadillac she drove the Oldsmobile
Every Friday he shacked up with his mistress
Doing things that he'd never do with the Mrs.
Who was back at home cooking dinner for him
They had a son who never had the calling
He went all over town drinking and balling
Got some girl pregnant when he was still a teen
Working at McDonalds and pumping gasoline
Driving that Camaro fast with all his friends
Daddy's been preaching the word ever since he was twelve
All about a merciful savior and the fires of hell
I know he meant it, so what's a little straying
He got everybody singing and a praying
"That devil better not come back down here again"
Missy wore them go-go boots; it did something for him
Made him think his wife back home was homely and boring
He met these guys who didn't mind getting dirty
He was a pillar and his alibi was sturdy
It only took a little bit of cash and the deed was done
Stained glass windows, Jesus looking down
Organs playing music to the middle aged crowd
His wife's in the ground the devil's in his head
Them go-go boots are underneath the bed
But it's a small town and word gets around
Gossip is a flying and his son starts to thinking
He see's his Daddy's new wife driving around in a Lincoln
There's a lot he'd like to ask if he could get the chance
But he's scared he might have to kill the old man
He wonders what the Lord will say when he weighs it all out
It's a small town. Go-Go Boots.

Ricky Boy, Ricky Boy, You got somethin' left to deal with
What you gonna do about merchandise?
Ricky Boy, You got the money, you got somethin' left to do
What you gonna do about countin' right?
Your shirts too damned small for your body
You got your freedom out in the open
We got to figure out how to quit all your dancing
And go and check out the swag
Ricky Boy, Oh Dancin' Ricky,
You've got plenty of moves left to do
Hey Ricky, don't let the Diabetes get you!
Dancin' Ricky, Oh Dancin' Ricky,
You've been spinnin' just like a ride
What you gonna do about actin' right?

I'm not good with numbers
I just count on knowing when I'm high enough
A mule with only two legs counting steps toward dangling carrots don't add up
I think about you when I can and even sometimes when I can't I do
Once the driver knows you got good sense he takes away the carrots too
Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before
Is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor
Jesus made the flowers but it took a dog to make the story good
I think about you when I can and sometime when I don't I probably should
Tending bar in LA after dark must be like mining cartoon gold
Rocks that won't cooperate and tools that drive you crazy must get old
I think about you when I can and sometimes when I do I still get caught
sitting in a bar in LA after dark with my sunglasses on

I got to tell you
You got to take that gun back
Cuz these things that I been shooting at are getting all too real
Don't want to hurt nobody, but I keep on aiming closer
Don't think that I can keep it feeling like I feel
Ray I know I told you
That I'd keep it for you
I know I said I trusted me with it more than you
But something happened last night that made me reconsider
I need you to drive out here and relieve me of it too
I figured after forty years, I wouldn't still be having nightmares
You'd think that now that we're older, that war would finally be over
Ray, I'm in my sixties and the nights ain't getting shorter
Only my patience and checkbook and fuse
Ray I got to tell you
You got to come take that gun back
Cuz these things that I been shooting at are getting all too real

Moon beams we can dream on, at the setting of the sun
And the stars we can wish upon, when the working man is done
Sunsets we could cry over, have our trouble's on the run
But more than these miracles above, good people, we need love
Everybody needs the love, love, love
Everybody needs the love, love, love
Everybody needs the love, love, love
Just like they need the sun and moon and stars up above.
And nobody ever found happiness, living their life all alone
I used to walk around like I didn't need nobody, to keep me happy and alone
And one fine day I found myself in trouble, way down without a friend
Along came the love of a real fine woman, said she'd love me 'til the end
Everybody needs the love, love, love
Everybody needs the love, love, love
Everybody needs the love, love, love,
Just like they need the sun and moon and stars up above.
Everybody, everybody needs love, love, love
Everybody, everybody needs love, love, love
Everybody, everybody needs love, love, love
Just like they need the sun and moon and stars up above.
Everybody needs the love, love, love
Everybody needs the love, love, love,
Everybody needs the love, love, love,
Just like they need the sun and moon and stars up above.
Everybody, everybody everybody needs love, love, love
Love, love, love, love, love, love.
Love, love, love, love, love, love.
Everybody, everybody needs love, love, love
Everybody, everybody needs love, love, love
Everybody, Everybody needs love

You buy me dinner when I'm in town
Talk about records that you know
Lay the friendship card upon me and out the door
Somebody said we hurt your feelings with our little dirty jokes
Then you accused us of stealing back our soul
Then you say that we're the assholes
Cause we bitched about the hassles
While you're sleeping in your castles
And we're still riding down the road
I hear you're all offended by the letters that I wrote
It's just a shame it hadn't ended long ago
Then you sicked your lawyers on me
Told them to go for the throat
And you just sat back and watched them have a go
Then you say that we're the assholes…
But I never would deny we have our share of the blame to absorb
But when you say that you're the reason for the things that we've achieved
I want to kick down your door
You like to say that we're the assholes
As if we somehow done you wrong
We just do what we have to, to carry on
I'm sure you'll find another asshole
To replace us for a song
You'll keep your office and expense account and we'll keep traveling along
When you say that we're all assholes
Guess it'd be useless to deny
I'm just saying you're the reason why

It's a shame for you to do me the way you did babe
Making me put you down before I was through
You tempted me and tried me and I kept you right beside me
You ruined me for everyone but you
It's easy to love a thing so warm and soothing
That gets you through the night so tenderly
but after all these nights with you all I remember
Is forgetting just how cold your heart could be
Leaving you wont be any harder than walking out the door and leaving town
but I'll be leaving knowing surviving you don't make me stronger
Than the weakest man who ever turned you down
The body in that pretty dress you wore dear
Fit my shaking hand just like a glove
but trembling's for the fearful old and crying
Getting old and sad and scared ain't worth your love
so will you let me go just like I came babe?
Willful clear of mind and free to see
Clear enough to see the others like you
and mindful my will breaks so easily
Leaving you wont be any harder than walking out the door and leaving town
but I'll be leaving knowing surviving you don't make me stronger
Than the weakest man who ever turned you down

Used to be a cop, but I got to be too jumpy.
I used to like to party till I coughed up half a lung.
Sometimes late at night I hear the beat a-bumping
I reach for my holster and I wake up all alone.

Used to have a wife but she told me I was crazy.
Said she couldn't stand the way I fidget all the time.
Sometimes late at night I circle round the house.
I look through the windows and I dream that she's still mine.

I got scars on my back from the way my Daddy raised me.
I used to have a family until I got divorced.
I've gone too far from the things that could save me.
I used to be a cop, but they kicked me off the force.
I used to be a cop, till they kicked me off the force.

Used to have a car, but the bank came and took it.
Paying for a house that that bitch lives in now.
Children that we had won't even look at me.
Guess there's nothing left to lose, nothing matters anyhow.

Got a scar on my arm from the bullet that once grazed me.
I keep it in a box to remind me where I've been.
That thin blue line was the only thing that could save me.
I used to have a badge but they made me turn it in.

And I used to play football, but I wasn't big enough for college.
But I passed the entrance exam first try, and on my way.
Police Academy gave me the only thing I was ever good at,
but my temper and the shakes, and they took that thing away.

Used to have a wife, but she just couldn't deal
with the anger and the tension that was welling inside of me.
Sometimes late at night, I circle round the house
I look through the window and I remember how it used to be.
I look through the windows and I remember how it used to be.

I hear you hummin' while you're driving me to wine
I hear your fingertips on the steering wheel keeping time
We're almost there so I guess we better go inside
Maybe that dude will be there, that dude that helped last time
He's got good stories, He knows a hell of a lot about wine
He told us things we never heard about purple and dying
I hear you hummin', hear you hummin' all the time
You got a lot of words yet you opt for hummin' everytime

The Reverend had his wife done in by a guy I knew in High School
He and a friend should do her in and make it look like a robbery
"Here's money son, go buy a gun and shoot her in the head
No one who dies, testifies, make sure that she is dead"
The heathens were paid a thousand bucks to eliminate someone
Plus they were paid five hundred more to get themselves a gun
The guy I knew had a hunting knife, "Why bother with a gun?
She'll still be dead, why sweat details, as long as it gets done"
The Bible said that Jesus bled for the sins of the rest of us
The Reverend has his wife done in for fifteen hundred bucks
They knocked upon the door and said their car broke down
and asked if they could use the phone for a ride back into town
They stabbed her several times and left her there for dead
Bleeding and crying out and gasping for breath
and they went out the very next night and bragged about it
The Reverend came home from work and found the Mrs. dying
Life was falling from her grasp but still she lay there trying
No one will ever know what she told him or know what he told her
Cause the Reverend did his wife in, fifteen whacks, fireplace poker
The headlines screamed out "Brutal Murder, small town preacher's wife"
The crime rocked all of Colbert County as each new fact came to light
It seems the Preacher had a girl he counseled on the side
Now the shit was coming down and she was scared to lie
The preacher came home from the funeral and found Policemen waiting
The heathens, it seems, got coked up and drunk and did a lot of communicating
Life is cheap for a couple of creeps but this here is the smoker
Their prints were found all around the room but not on the fireplace poker
The Preacher's son brought his father home and followed him inside
Shots rang out in the Tuscumbia night. Was he alone when he died?
"Don't call the son for questioning, that bullet was deserved
Better call it suicide, justice has been served"
Better call it suicide, justice has been served

[No lyrics]

Grandmother's wheelchair is sitting in the corner
We all sure love her, but the little ones avoid her
Cause she's gray-haired and wrinkled and her burden looks heavy
Ninety years of survival can look awful scary
Papa's building something and has since history
But what he's building is still a mystery
It's big and it's twisting and shaped convoluted
It don't have a function but you better salute it
And it will never be finished but I guess that's the point
It just gives him a filter and psychological ointment
He woke up real early but he's late for his appointment
And I sure wish that I had smoked me a joint
It's Thanksgiving and Jesus, I'm thankful
For abundance and bounty and a big tall stiff drink-full
And the love of your mother and the love of mine too
Thanksgiving's almost over and Christmas is soon
Mama is trying to live in the present
Don't let him have a heart attack before I pay off the presents
Granddaddy's gone but she still feels his presence
He tried to call but he didn't leave a message
It's Thanksgiving and Jesus I'm thankful…
So put the food on the table and Papa says a blessing
They're cutting up some turkey and gobbling some dressing
My Aunt's praising Palin and my niece loves Obama
My uncle came to dinner wearing his pajamas
Thank God for the filter that enables some distance
From the screaming and crying and the needs of assistance
You wonder why I drink and curse the holidays
Blessed be my family from 300 miles away
It's Thanksgiving and Jesus I'm thankful…

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

When all your good days keep getting shorter, count on me
When you're about twenty-cents shy of a quarter, count on me
When you just need a place to hide out for a while
I'll help you hide the bodies in a little while
I will bring you buckets of mercy
And hold your hand when you're crossing the street
Play a song if you want it
When you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, call on me
If you're feeling that freight train running through your head, call on me
If you just need a friend to talk to or maybe not talk at all
I will bring you buckets of mercy
And put a smile back on your pretty face
Bring a shovel if you want it
Carry your secrets to my grave
When you're down and out
I'll pick you up down at the station
Give your hard times some vacation
Get you headed on your way
I will bring you buckets of mercy
And hold your hand when you're crossing the street
Pay your bail if you need it
I will be your saving grace…