Tom Russell - Blue Wing lyrics

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He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder

Well it might have been a blue bird I don't know

But he gets stone drunk and talks about Alaska

The salmon boats and 45 below

He said he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla

And his cellmate there was Little Willy John

And Willy he was once a great blues singer

And winging Willy wrote him up a song. He said…

CHORUS:

It's dark in here; can't see the sky

But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes

And I fly away beyond these walls

Up above the clouds where there ain't no fall(unsure of this word)

On a poor man's dreams.

They paroled Blue Wing in August, of 1963

He moved North picking apples to the town of Wenatchee

Then winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park

On the South side of Seattle where the days grow gray and dark

And he drank and he dreamt of visions when the salmon still ran free

And his fathers, fathers crossed that wild old Bering Sea

And the land belonged to everyone and there were old songs yet to sing

Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotels and a tattooed prison wing

CHORUS:

Well he drank his way to LA; And that's where he died

And no one knew his Christian name and there was no one there to cry

But I dreamt there was a funeral; A preacher and a cheap pine box

And half way through the service, Blue wing began to talk. He said…

CHORUS:

Hey hey, On a poor man's dreams;

Hey hey, On a poor man's dreams.