Like in some old Elvis Presley song

Down the south side of some city

To some man he’s never known

Just where Bucky he called home

No one would wanna say

Cause he was doing time near Cherokee when he finally got away

Then there was the Angel, who loved him just the same Even though she tried her best ain’t it funny how it seems Sometimes things just happen, ain’t that just the way it goes?

The only thing for certain seems are things you never know

So Manny he slipped in the alley off the backside of that road looking to maybe cut a deal and try and keep it all down low

As reflections of temptation danced beneath the old street lamp

Bucky felt the tide start turning against the walls of circumstance

So Manny he was crossing over

About the time Bucky doubled back

Trying to keep the wheels turning and the needle on the track

And in an old rundown apartment just outside of town

Angel’s singing for their supper and a little wine to wash it down

It was getting on around toward midnight when Bucky started heading for the door

Said he was on heading back downtown to settle up one last score

Manny turned to the Angel who was dancing in the hall For a die to land where its cast sometimes you’ve got to bet it all And ‘fore the morning line it was humming somebody was bound to fall

For reasons lost only on the ones who can recall

Yeah Sometimes things just happen ain’t that just the way it goes?

The only thing for certain seems are things we’ll never know

It was “Just a Closer Walk with Thee ” I heard some trumpets moan When Manny said he was heading out and Angel wouldn’t tell us too much more

As the days go by I’ve wondered what cards Bucky could’ve played

But what’s it matter to me if it even matters anyway?

With words un-adorning, surely as the morning

sparrows will be warbling for you To come and lay me on down

When I was much younger the girls in the Dancehall seemed fair

There were warm summer evenings full of passion and feeling and rhyme without reason or cares

They’d come and lay me on down

Take my last silver dollar when the organ she’s finally through

And may the words of your fortune come without warning

gently as the morning’s soft dew

When they come and they lay me on down

Just to find out that a diamond was just really old coal I saw you out riding, had your hands on the reigns Your heart like the throttle on an old funeral train

If tomorrow weren’t coming

I thinks what you said

Would you bring me some comfort Or try to save me instead?

Silence is deadly, like the sound of a gun To a bird on a wire when it’s lost in a song I saw you out hiding all of your shame By a stone in the River neath a cold winter rain

Now there’s wine in the chalice and theres bread on the plate Can they buy you forgiveness for the dreams we’ve betrayed?

You won’t see me tomorrow cause she was already here And all that she left me was the brine for some tears

If tomorrow weren’t coming

I thinks what she said

Would you bring me some comfort Or try to save me instead?

Sailing across the airwaves from a little station in Point Reyes Every Monday evening, from 7 unfil 10 the best of Bluegrass, folk and country

And a song for West Marin

I first met him in the mountains

Early one frosty morn

Pouring rum in his mushroom coffee

And when he finished he poured me some

He always smelled a litle funky and don’t get me started on his feet But through this crazy world a kinder soul I’ve seldom scene

I always think lIl remember back in 2010

When He was the only DJ that liked to give my tunes a spin I was standing in the kitchen drinking eggnog by the stove

With the biggest grin on my old man when he heard his boy on that radio

Well I was supposed to see him just a few days up the road

But supper is never guaranteed and the good Lord called him home

So tell the ones you love, and make peace with those you don’t Always slow down for life’s curves And iust turn up the radio

‘Cause from the sands of Olemo

Way out on Tomales Bay

I bet he’s sailing down through the San Juans and heading for Tequila Beach

But every Monday evening from 7 until 10

It was the best of Bluegrass, folk and country And a song from West Marin The best of Bluegrass, folk and country And a song with my old friend

Of the gypsy I was with the night we met Saint John the Prine

She’s still married to some other guy

Sometimes I even wonder if there’s one good reason why

If tomorrow wasn’t just like yesterday

Would things be any different or pretty much the same?

Like daisies were all born to bloom and fade away

And it’s hard to find the sunshine where you can feel some rain

I wish I could remember what all he said

About the Iron Man in Birmingham who lived up on the hill

When he said the part he thought old Moretti missed

It was something about a pair of cowboy boots, another hot dog or a pogo stick

If tomorrow wasn’t just like yesterday

Would things be any different or pretty much the same?

Like daisies were all born to bloom and fade away

And it’s hard to find the sunshine where you can feel the rain

Sol sipped bourbon in my overalls last night

I was all alone out on the patio beneath the big pink full moon’s light And I’II admit a tear came into my eye

As I was sitting there in my folding chair humming Paradise

In the Greyhound Station with tender eyes of green

Shaking like a willow by the Coke machine

With sixteen winters just barely seen

Like a Polaroid of a broken dream

Her mothers habit on her apron strings

She played Dixie in a minor key

From pigeon Forge to Myrtle Beach

Where the angels sleep you know the devil dreams

There ain’t much love left for charity

At least around here that’s the way it seems

On a Friday night with her faded jeans

Down back behind the tasty freeze for a dirty needle and a place to sleep

She’s cold and alone at 27 weeks 51

The black muddy river was cold and deep

The night we pulled her body onto the Sandy Beach

Still Carrying the baby we’d never let her keep

She played Dixie in a minor key

From pigeon Forge to Myrtle Beach

Where the angels sleep you know the devil dreams

When You’d rather close a clinic down than lend a hand to those in need

In the Grevhound Station With tender eyes of green

Shaking like a willow by the Coke machine

Waiting in the back of an old blue Chevrolet

We’d sneak down to the Pack n Sack

Across the railroad tracks

To try and muster a little courage from Mr. Boone and Mr. Pabst

Who wants to go drinking tonight?

Who wants to go drinking tonight?

Come the morning everything gonna be all right

Who wants to go drinking tonight?

Wendy she got married, settled down then lost a child Said she figures that’s probably when the whole thing headed south Says she couldn’t take the mornings, or one more of those nights Believing we’re only victims of our own compromise

Then she says it’s funny how through this old dirty windshield

She can still feel that warm sunshine

And it I could she says, she might still be waiting on me

It ain’t nothing but a line That keeps her on my mind

The wheels of time they’re bound to keep on turning

Taking us all somewhere a little further on down the line

But when you find some faded love lost on the bad road of your mind Be thankful for the ones that can still lend you a smile

With his Purple Heart he’d made it home alive Just to be beaten like a dog and left to die

All for a drink of water beneath the “whites only sign

In the shadow of a mountain

Where carved into the stone

Were faces of some men who thought that others could be owned,

I grew up with the Williams, old Hank and Tennessee It’s the day I shook Hosea’s hand that my eyes began to see On the road from Selma, in 1965

On that bloody Sunday, he was leading up the charge

All because he wanted just what he’d fought to save for me and you To sit at the Woolworth counter and spin on those shiny stools

Yeah, I grew up with the Williams, old Hank and Tennessee It was the day I shook Hosea’s hand that my eyes began to see I was in Montgomery on the day he died

I stopped and saw Ms Audrey, end headed down to the river side Where I sat with old Captain Pät and we shared a drink or two For the Bull in the china closet, for Thunderbolt and the Truth As I tried to ponder the work left to be done

I wished I was half as un-boughten and un-bossed as that man was

Yeah, I grew up with the Williams, old Hank and Tennessee It was the day I shook Hosea’s hand that my eyes began to see

So $8.95 I guess somebody gave

To be sure when they died their soul would be saved

My cousin Johnny he played high school ball

When the Towers came down he signed up for the cause He was fighting for his freedom when an oil field bomb

Took both of his legs and his buddy named Juan

Johnny came home in the back of a plane

With one flag covered box and two pills for the pain

We laid Juan in a canyon by a cottonwood tree

While Johnny wondered if freedom was really cheap gasoline

Then I saw my aunt Mary down by the Walgreens At the corner of St Commerce and Trinity Street Outside on the wall Johnny spray painted in red

“I guess Jesus can’t save when there’s profits at risk”

So Johnny died in the alley back behind the VA

Against a crumbling wall with a hole in his vein He was fighting those demons we all employed Forgetting that vengeance belongs to the Lord

Won’t you come down and save me Saint Dismas?

I don’t know who else to call

You’re the only one he said for certain would make it up to Paradise Hall

So many times it seems like the truth still is denied

Won’t you come down and save me Saint Dismas, it seems like the old roosters done died

Yeah, I saw Jesus on a sale rack at the Walmart today