Nashville Road

Richard E Russell (Richard Russell Publishing/ASCAP) © All Rights Reserved

(3:49) Elfy Kornfeld, vocal and baritone ukulele; Rick Russell, guitar; Josh Sill, mandolin; Terrell Jones, bass and harmony vocal; guest musician Jeff Webb, pedal steel guitar

The twelfth of November in thirty-three I carried a Gunter’s chain
Through the Middle Country of Tennessee and my survey lines remain
I was barely sixteen when I worked one hundred and fifty odd days
They paid me an honest wage so never was need to complain

And the stars fell like showers of snow and the heavens were all aglow
And as silver tracks scratched the sky a calmness filled my soul
And with a half a jug of whiskey and without too heavy a load
I’m goin’ back to where I belong, somewhere on the Nashville Road

Runnin’ a line through briars and vines, racing a setting sun
Knee deep in mire and swattin’ flies, we was covered with mud and blood
Still six hundred and forty poles to the point where we begun
We had to get back to the Nashville Road before our work was done

And the stars fell like showers of snow and the heavens were all aglow
And as silver tracks scratched the sky a calmness filled my soul
And with a half a jug of whiskey and without too heavy a load
I’m goin’ back where I belong, somewhere on the Nashville Road

At Hill’s Old Place we took our leave near the Cumberland Plateau
Blessed with youth I did not know that change had been bestowed
I’ll forever remember the fires in the night so many years ago
And the days a boy became a man somewhere on the Nashville Road

And the stars fell like showers of snow and the heavens were all aglow
And as silver tracks scratched the sky a calmness filled my soul
And with a half a jug of whiskey and without too heavy a load
I’m goin’ back where I belong, somewhere on the Nashville Road

Richard E Russell (Richard Russell Publishing/ASCAP) © All Rights Reserved