Drive-By Truckers Album

Daddy's gone away and no one can tell me why
Mama's been so sad
Since Daddy learned to fly
Everybody brought food
And everybody cried
Nothing's been too good
Since Daddy learned to fly

Fun we used to have
And the way we used to laugh
It's all gone away since they cut my world in half
Sometimes I think I see him smile from the sky
But he never stops to visit since Daddy learned to fly

Everyone tries so hard
To ease my troubled mind
Guess he's doing better than the ones he left behind
They tell me I'm not old enough to know the reasons why
The clouds reached down from heaven,
Daddy learned to fly
Learned to fly

They tell me that in time everything will be okay
Life goes back to normal
Like before you flew away
They tell me you can see me
So I'm trying not to cry
But sometimes I can't help it since Daddy learned to fly

Learned to fly
Learned to fly

On the first night of my drinking I was looking for my keys
I was half blind and stinking and bloody at the knees
I had a built in fever and bright red cheeks
My checks and balances up shit creek

It was all in fun, I didn't hurt no one
Until I crawled back for more
Then there was damage done but I made it home
And woke up on the floor

On the second night of my drinking I was looking for my car
And as luck would have it I found it parked outside my favorite bar
I had a leather liver and lipstick streaks
I had a disposition of valleys and peaks

It was a lot of fun until I shot my gun
And the neighbors called the law
They didn't take me in but they let it sink in
That I was headed for a fall, headed for a fall

On the third night of my drinking I was yelling at your house
I had a stick in my hand and was convinced
Some man was in there hiding out
I had a foot on your door, you had me down on the floor
I woke up next morning and my jaw was sore

Then I was back at the bar and I was wanting some more
Then I was back at the bar and I was wanting some more
Then I was back at the bar and I was wanting some more
Until they tried to cut me off

On the fourth night of my drinking I had to go it all alone
As my friends list was shrinking and I was sinking like a stone
I had a steely eye, I had mouth full of grit, my disposition had gone full tilt
There was a taste in my mouth, I wasn't liking it

Guess, it will be through with me before I'm through with it
Guess, it will be through with me before I'm through with it
Guess, it will be through with me before I'm through with it

"Which one's the birthday boy?"
She said, "I ain't got all night"
"What your momma name you?
You can call me what you like.

Every skin in history
gotta make it hard some how.
Sit your bare ass down right here.
I'll solve yours right now.

Got a girlfriend don't you boy?
Nervous hands can't lie.
Married men don't [ ] much
Single one's ain't [ ]

One day you've got everything.
Next day it's all broke.
Lat this trixie sit up front.
Let her wipe your nose.

Working for the money like you got eight hands,
flat on your back under a mean old man,
just thinking happy thoughts, breathing in.

Between your momma's drive and daddy's belt
It don't take smarts to learn the tune
[ ]

Pretty girls from the smallest towns
can't remember life's storms and droughts
[ ] old men talk about the years to come

Guess that's why [ ]
[ ] can say they saw us when we were young

"Which one's the birthday boy?"
She said, "I ain't got all night"
"What your momma name you?
You can call me what you like."

Drag the lake, Charlie
Charlie, drag the lake
Lester didn't come home last night
And Wanda's all irate
Better keep your fingers crossed,
And hope we find him drowned
Wanda's gonna come and kill us all
If he shows up in town

Drag the lake, Charlie
I heard that he was seen
Cavortin' with ol 'Shorty
Up at the Line again
Wanda's got that goddamn
pistol in her purse
If she goes on the rampage
You'll have to call the Hearse

Better drag the lake, Charlie
Charlie, drag the lake
Remember what happened last time
When Lester went on the make?
I heard it took the cleaning crew
Two weeks to clear the bar
They never found that teenage girl
They never found her car

Drag the lake, Charlie
Drag the lake, Charlie
It won't be the first time,
But it might be the last

Drag the lake, Charlie
And keep your fingers crossed
And if you're friends with Jesus
Please ask him to help us
My best-case scenario
Is Lester turns up dead
I'm almost out of Valium,
Courage, and self-respect

Drag the lake, Charlie
Drag the lake, Charlie
It won't be the first time,
But it might be the last

It was as open and shut as anything I have seen
He was a pillar of town, his reputation was clean
It was right before Easter in the first week of spring

He didn't show up for service that Wednesday night
The congregation knew something weren't right
Blood on the bed when they opened the door
The preacher was dead on the bedroom floor

And everyone knew there had to be some outside thing
That made this happen
Because they seemed like the perfect family

He'd been shot in the back a day before he was found
His wife and three kids were nowhere around
An Amber Alert was issued in town

Everyone was shocked at the scene of the crime
She'd taken the kids across two state lines
Found her in Orange Beach with the kids in the car
Sent back to Selmer to await her trial for first-degree murder

Was she crazy or just plain old mean
To have gone and done it?
She said she heard the bang and was afraid he'd be mad
And made a run for it

Said, they were having a fight and the gun was a bluff
She didn't pull the trigger it just went off
Said that he berated her about everything
Made her do things that made her feel so ashamed

Nobody at church would ever suspect
Made her dress up slutty before they had sex
In the courtroom that day there was an audible gasp
What they put up on display the locals couldn't quite grasp

There was an audible gasp in the courtroom that day
When the defense pulled out and displayed

Them high-heeled shoes and that wig he made her wear
Reduced her charge to voluntary manslaughter
And I ain't judging either way but she's already out of jail
And it was them high-heeled shoes and that wig he made her wear

I see you're runnin', baby, out of time
I see you're runnin', babe, we're way out of line
You got another and you'll go to her
You got another and you'll go to her

Babe, it ain't funny, we've got a lot of love
And only God knows where the hell it come from
You got another and you'll go to her
You got another and you'll go to her

I see you're runnin', baby, out of time
I see you're runnin', babe, we're way out of line
You got another and you'll go to her
You got another and you'll go to her

Babe, it ain't funny, we've got a lot of love
And only God knows where the hell it comes from
You got another and you'll go to her
You got another and you'll go to her

Workin' this job is a kick in the pants
Workin' this job is like a knife in the back
It ain't gettin' me further than the dump I live in
It ain't gettin' me further than the next paycheck
Workin' this job is like lightin' two fuses
Workin' this job is runnin' out of excuses
It's like a dead-end when a road map is useless
Until I'm dead and there's nothin' to show for my uses

Nobody told me it'd be easy
Or for that matter, it'd be so hard
But it's the livin' and learnin'
It makes the difference
It makes it all worthwhile
It makes it all worthwhile

Workin' this job, there's nothin' left but to hate it
I won't get as far as my daddy made it
It aint gettin' me farther for all my strivin'
In the dead-end I live or the piece of shit I'm drivin'

Nobody told me it'd be easy
Or for that matter, it'd be so hard
But it's the livin' and learnin'
It makes the difference
It makes it all worthwhile
It makes it all worthwhile

Sometimes I dream that I had aimed my life in different ways
But there was nothin' to show me a way to get me outta this place
So I just did what my daddy did before me
Only to find the only door I found was closed to me

Workin' this job, I thought it sucked when I had it
Now it is gone and I'm learnin' what that is
I'm tryin' to hang in to the worst of places
But a family can't live on these fast food wages

Nobody told me it'd be easy
Or for that matter, it'd be so hard
But it's the livin' and learnin'
It makes the difference
It makes it all worthwhile
It makes it all worthwhile

Workin' this job
Workin' this job
Workin' this job

Kim said, "Jimmy, you better get yourself
Op off of that raggedy couch
I'm too pretty to work and I'm tired
Of you uglying up my house"

Jimmy said, "Baby, the guys at the top
Are doing bad as the guys on the street"
Kim said, "The guys at the top ain't about
To be paying alimony to me"

Get downtown, see what you can find
Put your face in someone's that ain't mine
Looks like the unemployment blues
Are wearing out your house shoes
Baby, left when your boots came untied

Jimmy said, "Baby, ain't you seen the news
It's as far as the eyes can see
Foreigners are coming in and doing our jobs
For half of what they would've paid me"

You mean half of what you would've made
For something you've never done
Sounds like the bright side to all this
Jimmy is you're asking price went up

Now get downtown, see what you can find
Put your face in someone's that ain't mine
Looks like the unemployment blues
Are wearing out your house shoes
Baby, left when your boots came untied

Jimmy said, "Baby, if I work for you're daddy
It's worse than being his son"
Kim didn't like what he said one bit
And it didn't surprise him none

She said, "My daddy took good enough care of my mama
She hardly had to say a thing"
Jimmy said, "That's part of what's wrong"
Kim said, "Don't you say another damn thing"

Just get downtown, see what you can find
Put your face in someone's that ain't mine
Looks like the unemployment blues
Are wearing out your house shoes
Baby, left when your boots came untied

The graffiti on the back stage wall
Gets painted over in a muted shade
And the club becomes an Old Navy
After the scene dies

When the last six-string slinger
Has to bow down for insurance
And accept the mundane
After the scene dies

When the last one leaves
And the last note fades
And the last dream's been put away
Shut the light off, shut the light off

When the front man turns to Jesus
And the drummer moves away
I'll still be doing what pleases me
After the scene dies

When the bartender passes and the owner cashes out
And they box up the glasses
And they take the sound system down
Guitars back in their cases, don't forget my fries
After the scene dies

When the last one leaves
And the last note fades
And the last dream's been put away
Shut the light off, shut the light off

After the scene dies
After the scene dies
After the scene dies
After the scene dies

What you gonna do when the club shuts down?
What you gonna do when the club shuts down?
What you gonna do when the club shuts down?
After the scene dies

I don't even like the way it sounds
One day it's gonna be I told you so
I'm expectin' that you're gonna be down
One day it's gonna be I told you so
One day it's gonna be I told you so
One day it's gonna be I told

You never listened to a word I said
One day it's gonna be I told you so
I told you something and you kicked me in the head
One day it's gonna be I told you so
One day it's gonna be I told you so
One day it's gonna be I told

I'd like to catch you when you're fallin'
But you're too busy for me, darlin'
I tried to tell you you'd be fallin'
Now go on home and do your bawlin'

You picked up crazy and you let it in your head
One day it's gonna be I told you so
I'm all full up from the shit I was fed
One day it's gonna be I told you so
One day it's gonna be I told you so
One day it's gonna be I told

You said that you'd be waiting for me here in Santa Fe
With hotel rooms and TV's booming loud every night and day
And all I have to do is just be careful what I say
And do and what I put us through

Colorado, lines were down, Des Moine's an underwater town
Don't know what it is, I thought I'd find out here
It's moving forward as it must, 95 and blowing dust
Sitting here and missing us, it couldn't be more clear

You said that you'd be waiting for me here in Santa Fe
With dreams and postponements along the way
Conditioned by the outstretched miles and high desert air
Thinking I might find you there

Holding you in my dreams
Ricocheting back and forth between my two extremes
Of light and dark and all the in betweens
All of us know too well exactly what that means

Will you still be here waiting for me here in Santa Fe?
With arms and obligations and tears along the way
And all I have to do is revel in here everyday
Then do it again tomorrow, do it again tomorrow
Do it again tomorrow in some other place

And they fell from the skies with the greatest of ease
And they landed on the ground under tents and trapeze
And they were told that they fell with such beauty and grace
That The Flying Wallendas would be the name on their case

And the fine folks of Akron would forever be saying
That they flew through the air like the wings of a prayer
But they all walked away amidst the gawking and stares
And the children revisited their fall in nightmares
But they never would stop and they never surrendered
And they lived like they died, The Flying Wallendas

They could dance on the wire through the fire and the storm
John Ringling had seen Karl in Cuba perform
He raised up his kids for performance and stardom
They performed center ring at Madison Square Garden
With a seven man pyramid folks lined up just to see 'em
Till they fell from the sky at Detroit's State Fair Coliseum

And they fell to the ground with the greatest of ease
Three didn't get up from the blood in the breeze
But Karl wouldn't be stopped from his home in the skies
Till he fell from the wire in San Juan and he died

In Sarasota as a child my grandparents lived next door
To the surviving Wallendas and their amazing wild stories
I was stun and astounded that the old lady who was out
Pruning her orange trees had flown to the heavens and back

I see you watching me, your eyes are just like glue
Stuck like glue to every foolish thing I say and do
There's a safer distance still not out of touch
If daddy's quiet it probably means he's thinking way too much

Someday you'll be a man, you'll have a big old brain
You won't need it but you'll try to use it just the same
But it's like any house lonely people roam around
Wasted empty space a maze with only one way out

Nobody ever told me half the things I'm telling you
Even if they had I'd have had the same look that you do
Sometimes you think it and you want to hear it said out loud
If no one else does then it's up to you to shout it out

You'll want to do it all and you'll believe you can
But when the best that you can do becomes all you can stand
You'll know you're just a man when you feel all the weight press down
Next time you're watching me remember that's all I am now

[No lyrics]