Red Dirt Girl

Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon
Sitting on the front porch cooling in the shade
Singing every song the radio played
Waiting for the Alabama sun to go down
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town
Me and Lillian
Just across the line and a little southeast of meridian

I loved her brother I remember back when
He was fixing up a 49 Indian
Told a little sister gonna ride the wind
Up around the moon and back again
He never got further than Vietnam
I was standing there with her when the telegram come
For Lillian
Now he's lying somewhere about a million miles from meridian

Now there's not much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there in this great big world
Is where I'm bound
And the stars might fall on Alabama
One of these days I'm gonna swing my hammer down
Away from this red dirt town
Gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush at the back of the yard
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in
Across the red dirt line just a little southeast of meridian

She tried hard to love him but it never did take
Just another way for the heart to break
So she learned to bend
One thing they don't tell you bout the blues when ya got em
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't no end
Least not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid
She was only 27 had five kids
Coulda been the whiskey, coulda been the pills
Coulda been the dream she was trying to kill
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
Bout the life and the death of a red dirt girl named Lillian
Who never got any further across the line than meridian

Now the stars still fall on Alabama
Tonight she finally laid that hammer down
Without a sound
In the red dirt ground