Red Dirt Girl written by Emmylou Harris
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G
G
Me and my best friend Lillian
G
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon
C
Sittin' on the front porch' coolin' in the shade
G
Singin' every song that the radio played
D
Waitin' for the Alabama sun to go down
C
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town
G
Me and Lillian
G D C
Just across the line and a little southeast of Meridian
G
She loved her brother I remember back when
G
He was fixin' up a '49 Indian
C
He told her "Little sister, gonna ride the wind
G
Up around the moon and back again"
D
He never got farther than Vietnam
C
I was standin' there with her when the telegram come
G
For Lillian
G D C
Now he's lyin' somewhere about a million miles from Meridian
D
She said "There's not much hope for a red dirt girl
C
Somewhere out there is a great big world,
G
that's where I'm bound
D C
And the stars might fall on Alabama, but one of these days
G
I'm gonna swing my hammer down
D
Away from this red dirt town
G
I'm gonna make a joyful sound"
G
She grew up tall and she grew up thin
G
Buried that old dog Gideon
C
By a crepe myrtle bush at the back of the yard
G
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
D
Got in trouble with a boy from town
C
Figured that she might as well settle down
G
So she dug right in
G D C
Across a red dirt line just a little southeast of Meridian
D
She tried hard to love him but it never did take
C
It was just another way for a heart to break
G
So she learned to bend
D
But one thing they don't tell you 'bout the blues when you got 'em
C
You keep on fallin' 'cause there ain't no bottom
G D
There ain't no end, at least not for Lillian
G
Nobody knows when she started her skid
G
She was only 27 and she had 5 kids
C
Coulda' been the whiskey, coulda been the pills
G
Coulda been the dream she was tryin' to kill
D
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
C G
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl named Lillian
G D C
Who never got any farther across the line than Meridian
D
Now the stars still fall on Alabama
C G
The night she finally laid that hammer down
D G
Without a sound, in the red dirt ground
>From the album "Red Dirt Girl" by Emmylou Harris GRACD 103
Chords transcribed by Richard Kolarik
[email protected]
Malcolm Burn bass, electric guitar, drum box programming
Emmylou Harris vocal, acoustic guitar
Ethan Johns omnichord
Daryl Johnson percussion, bass pedals
Buddy Miller electric guitar
