Kinda OT: Johnny Cash; Great Lyrics

Saw Bill's reference to "Long Haired Red Neck" by David Allen Coe, and thought of my favorite country-type song from quite a while back by Charlie Daniels, "Long Haired Country Boy." (Same song Bill?) Travis Tritt who I like covered it later, but did not do it nearly so well. I know David Allen Coe also covered it later. Was he the original writer?

One of those songs that reminds me of my original college days which are a vague blur starting in 1975 and ending in 1981 or so. Of course, I gave myself the excuse that I was working full time, which I was. I was also working full time partying, and this song which I about wore out at the time seemed to fit. Felt a bit like Bluto Blutarski in "Animal House." It was 6 years of college + full time work + full time partying (for a whole 2 year degree!), but at least I graduated! And wasted enough time to last the rest of my life! (-:)

**************************

People say I'm a no-good,
Crazy as a loon.
Cuz I get stoned in the morning,
I get drunk in the afternoon.
Kinda like my old blue tick hound,
I like to lay around in the shade,
I ain't got much money,
But I damn sure got it made.

Cuz I ain't askin' nobody for nothin',
If I can't get it on my own.
If you don't like the way I'm livin',
You just leave this long-haired country boy alone.

Preacher man talkin' on the TV,
A-puttin' down rock 'n' roll.
He wants me to send a donation, cuz he's worried about my soul.
He said: "Jesus walked on the water," and I know that is true,
But sometimes I think that preacher man,
Would like to do a little walkin', too.

But I ain't askin' nobody for nothin',
If I can't get it on my own.
and if you don't like the way I'm livin',
You just leave this long-haired country boy alone.

A poor girl wants to marry, and a rich girl wants to flirt.
A rich man goes to college, and a poor man goes to work.
A drunkard wants another drink of wine, and a politician wants a vote.
I don't want much of nothin' at all, but I will take another toke.

Cuz I ain't askin' nobody for nothin',
If I can't get it on my own.
If you don't like the way I'm livin',
You just leave this long-haired country boy alone.
 
Funny about Charlie Daniels. Seen him many times none recently though. He's gone from being the Long Haired Country Boy to almost becoming like the very people he satirized in the song Uneasy Rider.
 
Was David Allen Coe, or ? the one who wrote "The Party Never Ends"???

The guy who wrote that was famous as a man with an ear to the American Southern Trailer Trash crowd.



munk
 
I met Mr. Cash back in the mid-80s. I was working as a security guy at a dinner theater, he was performing that night. I got there early one day, and was making the rounds backstage. I come around the stage curtain and almost walked right into him. :eek: He and I were the only ones in the whole room. He just sticks out his huge right hand and says, "Hello". I shake his hand, which about wraps around mine twice (and I have pretty big hands), and mutter/stutter a greeting. I ask him if he needs anything, says no thank you. One of my more vivid memories of working at that place.
 
Svashtar said:
Saw Bill's reference to "Long Haired Red Neck" by David Allen Coe, and thought of my favorite country-type song from quite a while back by Charlie Daniels, "Long Haired Country Boy." (Same song Bill?) Travis Tritt who I like covered it later, but did not do it nearly so well. I know David Allen Coe also covered it later. Was he the original writer?
Click to expand...

Don't know. David Allen Coe's goes like this:

COUNTRY DEEJAYS KNOWS THAT I'M AN OUTLAW
THEY'D NEVER COME TO SEE ME IN THIS DIVE
WHERE BIKERS STARE AT COWBOYS
WHO ARE LAUGHING' AT THE HIPPIES
WHO ARE PRAYING' THEY'LL GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE

LOUDMOUTH IN THE CORNER'S GETTING' TO ME
TALKIN' 'BOUT MY EARRINGS AND MY HAIR
I GUESS HE AIN'T READ THE SIGNS THAT SAY I'VE BEEN TO PRISON
SOMEONE OUGHT TO WARN HIM
'FORE I KNOCK HIM OFF HIS CHAIR

'CAUSE MY LONG HAIR JUST CAN'T COVER UP MY REDNECK
I'VE WON EVERY FIGHT I'VE EVER FOUGHT
AND I DON'T NEED SOME TURKEY TELLING' ME THAT I AIN'T COUNTRY
SAYING' I AIN'T WORTH DAMNED
OLD TICKET THAT HE BOUGHT

'CAUSE I CAN SING ALL THEM SONGS ABOUT TEXAS
AND I STILL DO ALL THE SAD ONES THAT I KNOW
THEY TELL ME I LOOK LIKE MERLE HAGGARD
AND SOUND A LOT LIKE DAVID ALLAN COE
AND THE BARMAID IN THE LAST TOWN THAT WE PLAYED IN
KNEW THE WORDS TO EVERY SONG I'D WROTE
SHE SAID JIMMY RABBIT TURNED HER ON TO MY LAST ALBUM
JUST ABOUT THE TIME THE JUKE BOX BROKE

YEAH, JOHNNY CASH HELPED ME GET OUT OF PRISON
LONG BEFORE RODRIGUEZ STOLE THAT GOAT
I'VE BEEN THE RHINESTONE COWBOY FOR SO LONG I CAN'T REMEMBER
AND I CAN DO YOU EVERY SONG
HANK WILLIAMS EVER WROTE

AND I CAN SING ALL THEM SONGS ABOUT TEXAS
AND I STILL DO ALL THE SAD ONES THAT I KNOW
I CAN'T HELP IT, I LOOK LIKE MERLE HAGGARD
AND I SOUND A LOT LIKE DAVID ALLAN COE

BUT THE COUNTRY D.J.'S ALL THINK I'M AN OUTLAW
AND THEY'D NEVER COME TO SEE ME IN THIS DIVE
WHERE BIKERS STARE AT COWBOYS
WHO ARE LAUGHING' AT THE HIPPIES
WHO ARE PRAYING' THEY'LL GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE

THE LOUDMOUTH IN THE CORNER'S GETTING' TO ME
TALKIN' 'BOUT MY EARRINGS AND MY HAIR
 
Johnny and Willie and Roy -- got to see then each in person at least once. Now Willie's the only one left. :(
 
Johnny Cash was an American Original who could make almost anyone's
song sound great. He even did a song with U2 that sounded alright.
 
munk said:
Was David Allen Coe, or ? the one who wrote "The Party Never Ends"???

The guy who wrote that was famous as a man with an ear to the American Southern Trailer Trash crowd.



munk
Click to expand...

Robert Earl Keen,

Saw him on Mountain Stage about 3 weeks ago. He's kind of famous for his humorous takes on low lifes, but he actually writes some really beautiful sentimental stuff too but never gets asked to play it. ;)

http://www.robertearlkeen.com/

Here's my favorite Keen song:
Mariano
By Robert Earl Keen, from the CD: No. 2 Live Dinner
The man outside who works for me, his name is Mariano
He cuts and trims the grass for me, he makes the flowers bloom
He says that he comes from a place, not far from Guanajuato
It's two days on a bus from here, a lifetime from this room.

I fix his meals and talk to him, in my old broken Spanish
He points at things and tells me names, of things I can't recall
Sometimes I just can't but help, but wonder who this man is
And if when he is gone, will he'll remember me at all

I watch him close he works just, like a piston in an engine
He only stops to take a drink, and smoke a cigarette
But when the day is ended, I look outside my window
There on the horizon, Mariano's silhouette

He sits upon a stone, in a south-easterly direction
I know my charts I know that he, is thinking of his home
I've never been the sort, to say I'm in to intuition
But I swear I see the faces, of the ones he calls his own

Their skin is brown as potter's clay, their eyes void of expression
Their hair is black as widow's dreams, their dreams are all but gone
They're ancient as a vision, of a sacrificial virgin
An innocent as crying, from a baby being born

They hover around a dying flame, and pray for his protection
Their prayers are often answered, by his letters in the mail
He sends them colored figures, he cuts from strips of paper
And all his weekly wages, saving nothing for himself

It's been a while since I have seen the face of Mariano
The border guards they came one day, and took him far away
I hope that he is safe down there, at home in Guanajuato
I worry though, I read there's ... revolution every ... day
 
I'm going to have to remember that, Hollow, as I do not own any Coe or Keen and get them confused.

Now if I can recall which of them Margo Timmins hung out with for awhile... (spelled her name wrong too)

Next time I buy CD's I'd planned on getting the other two American recordings Cash did I don't have, and now I'll pick up a Keen also. Any recomendations?


munk
 
munk said:
I'm going to have to remember that, Hollow, as I do not own any Coe or Keen and get them confused.

Now if I can recall which of them Margo Timmins hung out with for awhile... (spelled her name wrong too)

Next time I buy CD's I'd planned on getting the other two American recordings Cash did I don't have, and now I'll pick up a Keen also. Any recomendations?


munk
Click to expand...

Margo Timmins....Maybe you are thinking of Townes Van Zandt? They toured with Townes, he taught them to shoot dice and they wrote a song about it called Townes' Blues. One of the best things I ever saw the Cowboy Junquies do was a cover of "Lungs" by Van Zandt.

Oh yea Keen? Western Textures is good. Also he did some stuff off of his new one Farm Fresh Onions that was real good more rockers.

I like David Allen Coe, but don't really like the racist stuff he did so I don't own any of his albums. Keen has way more depth of songwriting.
 
No, I saw film, probably Austin City Limits, and I think Keen and Margo were 'together'. But my memory is screwed up. Richard Nixon was there too and he was shooting dice with Townes.


munk
 
munk said:
No, I saw film, probably Austin City Limits, and I think Keen and Margo were 'together'. But my memory is screwed up. Richard Nixon was there too and he was shooting dice with Townes.
munk
Click to expand...


I think that was the gig that Ed Know sponsored ;)
 
Damn straight.

Except I think it was Keen. I remember thinking, 'Oh my god, that Trailer trash into that lilly white girl?

Hey, btw; what is all this Heroin sheek stuff? I mean, it appears to me Gillian Welch writes an Opium song every album, and she toured with Townes.


( I don't know how to spell sheek, but you get the idea)


munk
 
Not sure about that. REK is a Texan, a good deal older than MT, who is a Canadian of course. Not sure how long you are talking ago but I think she has been married and has had kids for while.

The Junkies thing more has to do with their fascination with the Cowboys of the American West from what I have read. Also they are a family band not really a hardcore party band.

Interesting to me is how that Michael Timmins can write so well from the female perspective. Quite the sensitive guy I guess. Here's one of my favorites songs they do. I saw them a few years back when they were touring with The Band, and they had the organ player for The Band come out and set in with them on it.

RING ON THE SILL

(Michael Timmins)

She placed her ring on the sill,
dishes piled high
She's on the front porch step
and the air smells like snow
She's thinking of the siege to come
and how she'll miss those weekends
in the park with the sun on her face
and her book by her side and that
lingering taste that he left on her tongue

He lifts his glass from the table
It leaves a ring where it stood
He sees the light from the window
caress her like he knows he should
He's remembering the first time he kissed her
and how he'd wake
and immediately he'd miss her,
like a spell, with each breath,
he'd taste her breath like a haunting,
irritating as hell

Do you remember when you'd pray
to never see the day
when someone would make you feel this way
'Cause you knew
they would cut right through you
and once inside, you were afraid they'd find
nothing to hold on to

He puts her ring on her finger,
she brushes back his hair
He takes a sip from his glass,
she inhales the cold fall air
And they're thinking of the long road ahead
and the strength that they will need
just to reach the end
And there in the silence they search for
the balance between this fear that they feel
and a love that has graced their lives
 
Count me in with the "Cash is alright" croud. Actually, i think he's a little better than alright. He really had his own genre of music. He was just so cool and made everything sound good:) I'm not a country music fan. Never have liked the stuff. Probably had to do with the over saturation of country music in the mid-west and upper south. i'm also getting to the age where "kid's music" is like fingers on a chalk board to me. Don't get me wrong. I can hang with actual rap music if i take it as it is and i can respect legit artists like U2 and others that have been around for years, but the whole pop music thing drives me up a wall. Honestly, i've gotten so sick of the radio with the country and pop and the country/pop (what's up with rappers and country artists "borrowing" each other songs?) that i've been on a huge jazz kick. Classic vocal jazz mind you, not Kenny G elevator music;) Ella, Louis, Billie, etc.
As a matter of fact I had one of those "Good God! I'm getting older" moments the other night on the phone with one of my oldest friends. He and I were talking about savings and stocks and the social security system and the president, me in my white collar shirt with tie loosened. As we discussed I was enjoying my 3rd glass of pino noir with with a little ella and louis duet in the background. Then it hit me. Just 4 years earlier he and I were in cut off T-shirts and jeans that probably hadn't been washed in a month drinking the cheapest beer we could afford to smuggle into the dorms while rocking out to some AC/DC "Back In Black" (still one of my fav bands). Things change so fast. It's even more evident when you start stroling down memory lane with a friend of nearly 20 years. It's weird how music ties them all together:)

Jake
 
Steely_Gunz said:
while rocking out to some AC/DC "Back In Black" (still one of my fav bands). Things change so fast. It's even more evident when you start stroling down memory lane with a friend of nearly 20 years. It's weird how music ties them all together:)

Jake
Click to expand...

AC/DC is in the cd player right now :)
 
Just re-ordered "man comes around" (lost it somewhere) and also got "solitary man" from the American Recording series :)

Sam Hall is a great tune!!
 
Yeah, Sam Hall is OK for a socio path song. It was you, Maui Rob, who 'turned me on' to the last best Cash. You talked about it here in a thead long since gone- must be over 3 years ago now. But when I saw the excellent special on the CMC and Cash VS Nashville, I remembered what you said about the American REcordings. I didn't have enough moeny to buy them all, but got two and will get the others soon.



munk
 
Yeah, Sam Hall is OK for a socio path song.
Click to expand...
I forget not everyone is a sociopath like me--to me its just a song ;) :rolleyes: :D

I've been playing my Cash CD's alot more since this thread started. One thing I like about his music is that it allows a small release in our ultra PC world to smile about things that we are supposed to wince at in polite company.

Sometimes people just need to acknowledge the lion is dangerous, but not let it out of the cage. The acknowledgement does the work.
 
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