Mama comes in from the kitchen
She tells me to fetch my brother
She wipes her hands on her apron
And says don't be late for supper
I walk out on the front porch
The sun's abouty to die
It's still so hot the old dogs wouldn't bark
Even if a car's to drive by
There's a blue green Buick
And a flat black Ford
Jacked up off the ground
Daddy's sitting on a stump and he's looking bewildered
At the parts lying all around
We ain't been no where at all since the Fairlane threw a rod
Whatever it is is being damned to hell by my daddy and God
Some are here working on a passage to Heaven
And others they can't carrry that load
A few are left singining the blues on Purgatory Road
It is just a mile or so to the edge of town
There ain't much of one here now since
The factories closed down
You got no jobs you got no people you go no businesses
The only thing left is the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses
Mama she took me to church one time gonan get me baptized
Further on down the road, somethinig I realized
Now you mught way it's contempt prior to investigation
But nobody seems concerned
About their Savior's procrastination
Now just past the cemetery with its tumped over tomb stones
There's a little tavern that's called the Devil's Backbone
It's got your distilled spirits and Tennessee Sour Mash
Ans a little sign that says In God we trust
All others pay cash
My brother's sitting on a chair in front of an old tweed amplifier
He's playing bottle neck slide, steel on wire
Now when his mother died and his daddy left my
Momma she brought him home
And even thought he wassn't blood she raised him as her own
So now he sings them blues on an old Gibson 160E
And he don't even know what color he is 'cause he can't see