Old Hickory

(album: Volunteer - 2018)

Virgil Lee was a mighty man, he could outrun the L&N
Caught a wild cat and made him his friend, he was a flat woods boy
Caught his learning from a running brook
Taught him go with the flow and don't get hooked
But Virgil Lee kindly mistook, the devil for a dear friend
You can fool all the jokers with diamonds, you can playboy rambling roots
You can lie like a penny on the CNO line but the good Lord knows the truth

Just like a old hickory, shading the porch of a house that's been torn down
There ain't nothing that's left but the memories
And that long, tall, scraggily, bitter nut old hickory

It was Gainsboro at the at the Glow Worm Bar
We were passing around a jug and a guitar
Virgil picked it like an Opry star
I mean the boy was on fire
I said, "Hey Virgil Lee, where'd you get that stuff?"
He said, "I don't know, I guess I made it up?"
Well sometimes an empty cup just overflows
And all that summer was fire and rain
Virgil Lee started nursing the pain
'Til every one of them songs he would play was twisted

Just like a old hickory
Shading the porch of a house that's been torn down
There ain't nothing that's left but the memories
And that long, tall, scraggily, bitter nut old hickory

Laid him out in his overalls
'Cause when you get too big for your breeches well that's all
Hung his fiddle and his flat top guitar up in the high school gym
Nobody remembers his name an I can't say anyone's to blame
One of these times you gotta hear him play, he was the greatest that's ever been

You can fool all the jokers with diamonds, you can playboy rambling roots
You can lie like a penny on the CNO line but the good Lord knows the truth

Just like a old hickory, shading the porch of a house that's been torn down
There ain't nothing that's left but the memories
And that long, tall, scraggily, bitter nut old hickory
Shading the porch of a house that's been torn down
There ain't nothing that's left but the memories
And that long, tall, scraggily, bitter nut old hickory
Oh and that long, tall, scraggily, bitter nut old hickory