Red Dirt Girl

Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon
Sitting on the front porch, cooling in the shade
Singing every song the radio played
Waiting 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 fixing up a '49 Indian
He told her, "Little sister, gonna ride the wind
Up around the moon and back again"
Never got farther than Vietnam
I was standing there with her when the telegram come, for Lillian

Now he's lying somewhere
About a million miles from meridian

Said there's not much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there is the 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
Gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush at 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 Southeast of meridian

Yeah, she tried hard to love him but it never did take
It was just another way for the heart to break
So she learned to bend
One thing they don't tell you 'bout the blues when you got 'em
Keep on falling 'cause there ain't no bottom, there ain't no end
Least not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid
She was only 27 and she had five kids
Coulda been the whiskey, coulda been the pills
Coulda been the dreams she was trying to kill
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
'Bout the life and the death of a red dirt girl named Lillian

Could never got any further
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

Thank you