Blue Wing Tom Russell
BLUE WING
Tom Russell
He had a [D]blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Might've been a blue bird, I don't[Em] know
But, he'd get stone drunk and talk about A[A]laska
The salmon boats and forty-five be[D]low
And he got that blue wing in jail up in Wala-Wala
And his cellmate there was little Willie John
Willie, he was once a great blues singer
Wing and Willie wrote them up a song
Chorus
They said, it's dark in [D]here, can't see the [G]sky
But, I [D]look at this blue wing and I close my [A]eyes
And I fly a[D]way, beyond these [G]walls
Up above the [D]clouds, where the rain don't [D]fall
It's a poor man's [D]dream
Well, they paroled Blue Wing in August of 1963
And he moved North, picking apples, to the town of Wenatchee
Where the winter finally caught him in a rundown trailer park
On the south side of Seattle, where the days grow grey and dark
And he drank and he dreamt a vision, back when the salmon still ran free
And his father's father crossed that wild old Bering Sea
When the land belonged to everyone, and there were old songs yet to sing
Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotel in a tattooed prison wing
Repeat Chorus
Well, he drank his way to LA, and that's where he died
There was no one who knew his Christian name, nobody there to cry
But, I dreamed that there was a service, had a preacher and an old pine box
And half way thru the sermon, Blue Wing began to talk
Repeat Chorus
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