LYRICS /// BIG GOLD GUITAR
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1. Halfway

Halfway is a one-horse town
Where the cops don’t ever come around.
We can dance the floorboards into the ground.
Yeah, I’ll meet you at Halfway.

Out back with a divining stick
They’re digging up a clay bed 100 feet thick.
All because they want to stay.
Because life is good at Halfway.

I’m calling from a payphone at the Pacific Pride.
I’m out of gas and all I got is a quarter and a dime.
They wouldn’t take it anyway.

I guess I’ll stay.

Halfway is a happy place.
Where the sun burns death valleys into your face.
Our eyes are bleached our skin is brown.
Yeah, it’s sunshine every day at Halfway town.

Pour me another one baby, I’m halfway there.
We’re gonna dance ourselves six feet in the air.
Let the midnight breeze lift up your gown.
Because it’s liftoff tonight at Halfway town

At Halfway.

2. Joe, June and Mickey Featherstone

Featherstone hits the wall again.
In the back of a shitkicker bar.
The mop-up band takes the stand.
In front of the Stars and Bars.
Capacity crowd, parking lot’s full of cars.
And Saturday comes flashing down again.
Elephant ballet played on 4 X 10s.

Mickey got his head screwed up in Vietnam.
The VA labeled him a ticking bomb.
Drummer’s doing Bo Diddley on the snare and tom.
And in the corner, Joe and June are at it again.
She’s had enough of his alcoholic friends.

No one’s taking credit for the sticky mess in the bathroom.
The cook and the bar back could give a shit,
Smoking weed in the backroom.
Mickey’s hearing voices and he’s drinking hard through the gap in his teeth.
June shuts her eyes to keep from crying.
Joe downs his beer and gets up to leave.

Mickey’s dad came across the Atlantic in ’48.
Expecting to find the kingdom of God in the United States.
The search for work turned him soon to bitterness and hate.
And Hell’s Kitchen cooked that anger down.
Soon enough they were West Coast bound.

The band’s going into the Marshall Tucker encore.
When Mickey cuts his way across the floor.
Pulls out his gun, Joe’s about to walk through the door.
When Mickey’s bullet cuts him down.
June starts screaming and the music pounds.

Commotion breaks out as the people start to realize what happened.
Mickey drops his gun and the drums stop crashing.
The bartender calls the cops, leaps over the bar,
Springing to action.
And the guitar player has no clue what’s going on.

Three months later, Mickey gets released.
From the state ward up in Wenatchee
With a bottle of pills and a not-guilty plea.
Found innocent by reason of insanity.

And he’s all alone again.
And he’s on his own again.
And he’s on the road.

3.  American Blood

You wear that red, red jacket called American blood.
Leave nothing to imagine, what’s under the hood.
Understanding is a brush-stroke of paint on the face.
I got 27 dollars, to get my memory erased.

You got that red, red blood.
You got American blood.

Bernie’s drawing pictures on the griddle in grease,
He’s getting thick in the middle with the liquid disease.
Now they’re eating up his French fries, like cows chew their cud
You go to sleep in the barnyard, gonna wake up in the mud.

You got that red, red blood.
You got American blood.

Too many misfires, too many mistakes.
I’m too old to start over, I’m young enough to change.
I’m surrounded by hustlers, and liars and fakes.
They just happen to hang out at my favorite place.

I got this ravenous anger tearin’ holes in my mind
I got this righteous hunger, gonna have a good time.
So don’t you call me Johnny like were good, good friends.
I got no hands to shake, I got no time to pretend.

I got this fire in my blood.
And It’s American blood.

Fool To Wander

I grew up from a seed that fell.
I prospered in the sun.
I chased after every pleasure
As soon as I could run.

For restless miles,
And shiftless years,
I bore my burdens alone.

I was a fool to wander.
Now I’m coming home.

I traded the land that gave me life
For a desert parched and bare.
And still I drank from the precious pools
And I never stopped for air.

Like the glutton indulging every sense
My soul was skin-and-bone.

I was a fool to wander,
Now I’m coming home.

I thought I could hide out in the open.
I thought freedom meant never looking behind.
But in my heart I knew the emptiness I’d chosen.
And the truth became a poison in my mind.

Shallow roots can’t take hold.
Like a tumbleweed I blew.
Sacrificing my only home
For playthings shiny and new.

My costume jewels
And my fool’s gold.
Are worthless plastic and stone.

I was a fool to wander
Now I’m coming home.

5.  Devil In Another Man’s Hell

It started with a question, continued with a smile.
A few kind words, a shot walk down the aisle.
I was aiming for the cherry till I slipped and fell.

Now I’m the devil in another man’s hell.

It started with an explosion and a couple bad mistakes.
Now he’s swimming through the sandstorm
Waiting on a bough to break.
I’m at the bottom of his dreams,
Where suspicion starts to swell.

I’m the devil in another man’s hell.

She’s no dancer, but my lord, can she move.
I know the right answer but it’s not what I choose.
She promises nothing except not to tell.

Now I’m the devil in another man’s hell.

He’ll never know my name
He’ll never see my face
Except in the ashes of targets they throw away.

If he comes back home, he’ll find an empty shell.

Yeah, I’m the devil in another man’s hell

6. Emerald Valley Song

Luck bestows its favor upon those who prepare
When the ship comes in I’ll be waiting there.
Until the day I eat down in heaven’s galley
I will love my life in the emerald valley.

Livin’ way down
Way down.
Way down low in the Emerald Valley

I draw my water from a slow-moving river.
When she floods my yard, I always forgiver her.
The rains will come, but hope does not avail me.
For I grew up strong in the Emerald Valley.

Chorus.

My mother taught me and my father showed me
Where the green grass grows and life is holy.
I know my place and I tend to be happy
On my five acres of the Emerald Valley.

Chorus

Sometimes I’m broke, but I’m never poor.
My friends all know me by my open door.
When the scorekeeper comes around to mark the talley.
Let her know I live in the Emerald Valley.

Chorus.

7.  Ten-Pack of Years

We used to make love.
Out in the back lawn.
Now we’re eating dinner with the TV on.
Do you remember when I was obsessed with you?

You’d pick me up in that shit-brown Ford.
Even that old piece of shit was more than you could afford.
Do you remember the first time you saw my tattoo?

I do.
I do.
I remember you.
I do.

Drinking warm beer with your dad and talking sports.
You know he read me like a book report.
But I looked him in the eye, and for whatever reason why he let me through.

I was upstairs getting ready
But I was really getting high.
You kept cracking jokes about the red in my eyes.
Back then, my hair was red too.

I remember you.
I do.
I remember you.
I do.

What the hell’s a decade but a ten-pack of years?
There’s cold beer in the fridge.
We used to run up mountains and then we’d dive straight down.
Now we’re walking along this ridge.
Us and the kids.

There’s a book of pictures of you wearing white.
I took it down from the shelf last night.
I put on Nebraska and played the whole thing through.

At first I couldn’t I couldn’t sleep
And then I couldn’t dream.
I kept waking up to the sound of the ice machine.
I rolled over to my side and I just looked at you.

I remember you.
I do.
I remember you.

8. Factory Moon

Factory moon, shine down on me.
I want to see what there is to see.
And I know I will soon.
If I can outrun you, factory moon.

Factory moon, midnight on the bay.
I got a charm in my pocket, I just can’t throw away.
I hear a song.
A haunted tune.
The ghosts are serenading you.
Factory moon.

Factory moon, don’t apologize.
I’m tied to the earth.
You’re bound to the sky.
I drink one for me.
And another for you.
In an on-going toast
To the factory moon.

9. Bismarck

Your daddy was a land-locked sailor.
He never talked about his salty days.
Storm winds were breaking against the side of his double-wide
The night I blew into town and I swept you away.

You grabbed my dog-eared atlas and opened up to North Dakota.
You decided that’s where we’d go.
I punched my foot down on the gas, with the night-time flying past.
And down that rolled we rolled.

You talked about your childhood, talked about your future.
You talked about your sister down in NYC.
I was annoyed, but I wasn’t thrown. 
In hindsight, I shoulda known.
You never asked a thing about me.

Now I don’t have to tell you that you’re a beautiful woman.
You know exactly what you are.
My back isn’t right, but some of the best moments of my life
Took place in the backseat of that car.

The sign said 180 miles to Bismarck.
We pulled off at a rest stop that had no shade.
I dosed off in the grass, a couple hours must’ve passed.
I woke up in the dark and watched you pull away.

I ran over to the pay-phone, reached for my wallet.
All I found was a toothpick and a half-written song.
I was screamin, steamin through the ears when this big ole big wheel appeared
And the trucker asked me what the hell’s goin on.

He told me to jump on in, handed me a bottle.
Said he’d been burned more than a few dozen times.
He threw his rig into gear, and he grinned and I cheered
And we took off like a rocket down the line.

‘round about Bismark, reality took over.
You must’ve gotten off the highway or you turned around.
The trucker gave me 20 bucks, and wished me good luck
And I don’t know a soul in this town.

Patience (all we ever do is wait)

There’s a rattling in the pines tonight.
There’s a sickness standing tall.
There’s lamplight in the doctor’s face.
And a whispering in the hall.

Pale-white flower pedals, daisies white.
The kettle shrieks straight lines in the dark.
Crabgrass is growing toward the light.
I smell cotton candy in the park.

Patience, patience,
All we ever do is wait.

The old wheel stained his fingers slick and black.
The same hands cut the dugout from the hill.
Asleep now, outstretched, is he reaching out.
For the bouquet on the window sill.

Chorus

There’s a tremor in the woods tonight.
There’s a tree about to fall.
Sudden cracking gives my heart a fright.
There’s nothing left for us at all.

11. Sing Rosetta

If you steal something, and give it away
Does that change anything?
I swear I never lived a day
Until I heard you sing.

Rosetta sing.
Won’t you sing?
Won’t you sing?
Sing for me.

All the pastures and all the miles of green.
They used to mean everything.
I could take a rag, I could wipe them clean.
For the sake of listening.
To Rosetta sing.

Chorus

I won’t count on understanding
Because understanding fails.
When you’re lying on your back,
Counting columns in the clouds and telling tall tales.
200 years of damnation,
Well I guess I can’t brush that aside.
Old and gnarled is the banyan tree, is our coat of arms
Our family pride.

If I promise to be around to help
Will you stay just a little bit longer.
Each word is a song
And each day is a pair of wings.
When Rosetta sings.

Chorus

Big Gold Guitar in the Sky

Late in the evening, when all the party’s done
A big gold guitar hangs over the city giving light just like the sun.
Dancers push to the front, and with feeling, a band starts to play.
And trouble is nothing but a chance nobody’s taking
Nobody looks it in the eye or stands in its way.

It’s a worn-out record, which makes it sound better
To the brand of people that like to remember
And that meloldy’s as sweet as a peach in Georgia heat.
But the harmony’s just as cold as Decmeber.

To carry it on is to give in to the song.
To watch it pass and keep it moving, and help it along.
The singer won’t be denied because the devil cooks inside him
When he plays.
With hands as on a clock,
He’s out of time but it sounds good anyway.

There’s a celebration brewing
And shaken spirits awaken
To drain their ice cubes dry at the theater.
Brushing dust off their shoulders, they make orders without speaking
To silent, swift-footed waiters.

All at once, all our glasses rise
And we make a toast in music that we play with our eyes.
A chill runs down my coat as I know all the tomorrow I’m giving away.
It’s a nameless creek we float
But for reference’s sake, let’s call it today.

That big gold guitar is strung up like a harp
And it’s ringing down as if an angel picked it.
The singer admits the grift now that his playing hand is stiff
And he wanders off to join the afflicted.

Early in the evening, when the party’s just begun
A big gold guitar hangs over the city entertaining everyone.
And the price it takes depends because good songs make fast friends.
But they don’t stick around when all the singing’s done.