Red Dirt Girl

Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon
Sittin' on the front porch coolin' in the shade
Singin' 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
A little southeast of Meridian

She loved her brother I remember back when
He was fixin' up his '49 Indian
Told her little sister gonna ride the wind
Up around the moon and back again
Never made it further than Vietnam
I was standing there with her
When the telegram come for Lillian
Now he's lying somewhere
A million miles from Meridian

She said "There's not much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there is a great big world
That's where I'm bound
And the stars might fall in Alabama
But one of these days I'm gonna swing my hammer down
Away from this town
I'm gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin
She buried that old dog Gideon
By the crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard
Daddy grew mean and mama leaned hard
Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in
Just a couple of miles a little south east of Meridian

Yes she tried hard to love him
But it never did take
Just another way for the heart to break
So she learned to bend
The thing they don't tell you about the blues
When you got 'em you keep on falling there ain't no bottom
There ain't no end not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid
She was only 27 and she had five kids
Could've been the whiskey could've been the pills
Could've been the dream she was trying to kill
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl
Named Lillian
She never made it further
Across the line than Meridian

Stars still fall in Alabama
The night she finally laid
That hammer down without a sound
In the red dirt ground