Dry County

(album: Keep The Faith - 1992)

Across the border they turn
Water into wine
Some say it's the devil's blood
They're squeezing from the vine
Some say it's a saviour
In these hard and desperate times
You see it helps me to forget
That we're just born to die

I came here like so many did
To find a better life
To find my piece of easy street
And finally be alive
I knew nothing good comes easy
All good things take some time
I made my bed I'll lie in it
To die in it's the crime

You can't help but prosper
Where the streets are paved with gold
They say the oil wells ran deeper here
Than anybody's known
Now I packed up on my wife and kid
And left them both back home
See there's nothing in this paydirt
The ghosts are all I know

Now the oil's gone
And the money's gone
All the jobs are gone
Still we're hanging on

Down in dry county
They're swimming in the sand
Praying for some holy water
To wash these sins from off our hands
In dry county
The promise has run dry
Where nobody cries
And no one's getting out of here alive

Not this time

In the blessed name of Jesus
I heard a preacher say
We are all God's children
That He'd be back, back someday
Hoped that he knew
Something as he drank his cup of wine
I didn't have too good a feeling
As I head out to the night

I cursed the sky to open
I begged the clouds for rain
I prayed all night for water
For this burning in my veins

It was like my soul's on fire
And I had to watch the flames
Well, my dreams went up in ashes
And my future blew away

Now the oil's gone
And the money's gone
All the jobs are gone
Still we're hanging on

Down in dry county
They're swimming in the sand
Praying for some holy water
To wash these sins from off our hands
In dry county
The promise has run dry
Where nobody cries
And no one's getting out of here alive

Man spends his whole life
Waiting praying for some big reward
But it seems sometimes
The payoff leaves you feeling
Like a dirty whore
If I could choose the way I'd die
Make it by the gun or knife
'Cause the other way there's too much pain
Night after night after night after night

Down in dry county
Where they're swimming in the sand
Praying for some holy water
To wash these sins from off our hands
In dry county
The promise has run dry
Where nobody cries
And no one's getting out of here
Dry county
No one's getting out of here
Dry county. No