Whiskey River [Willie Nelson Cover]

I met a homeless Vietnam vet in California last year, he ended up giving me the guitar he was lugging around and it had his panhandling sign in it. He didn't play and enjoyed me playing him some songs so much that he gifted it to me.  Vets, especially combat vets, have all felt homeless at some point, some more than others.  The memories are our greatest strengths, while also being an open wound; often never healing nor being reconciled.  A lot of us just take it day by day, looking for peace in our own ways.

He's out there on the corner
Unfolds a cardboard sign
Says he's a Vietnam veteran
And he just can't get right
I got stuck on stupid
I fell in some quicksand
Patrolling round an hourglass 
With a rifle in my hand

Four years on a gun
Twenty without work
A few more in the bottle
Sixteen in the dirt
On my hands and my knees
At the bottom of the sea
Sure beats one day sober
It sure beats remembering

Give him some cheap liquor
Light his cigarette
Listen to him wonder
How he hasn't gone home yet
I got stuck on stupid
I got left behind
This world just don't make sense to me
So I gave up trying

Four years on a gun...

I had this old dog
Back when I was a kid
He got old and went missing
I didn't know why he did
Now I know that's his way
Of saying goodbye
So you won't watch him suffer
And so he won't see you cry

Four years on a gun...

I go out on the corner
Unfold a cardboard sign
Since I got home from Afghanistan
I just can't get right
I got stuck on stupid
Patrolling across the sand
Waiting on my convoy
With a rifle in my hand

Four years on a gun...

Stuck on Stupid

This is where the cars live. Get you one.

Pacing the room
I got nothing to do
She went back to Memphis
And somebody stole my shoes

Catch a ride
Catch a ride
Get me out of here before I die
I won't need no road map
Out of this town
Catch a ride
Catch a ride
Get me out of here before I die
I'll be buried by strangers 
Or eaten by flies
If I can't find a 
Catch a ride

Pockets are empty
I've got no credit
"Deadbeat sack of shit"
Yeah brother you said it

Catch a ride
Catch a ride
Get me out of here before I die
I won't need no road map
Out of this town
Catch a ride
Catch a ride
Get me out of here before I die
I'll be buried by strangers 
Or eaten by flies
If I can't find a 
Catch a ride

Do I look sketchy
Do I look paranoid
I think I see them coming
Looks like it's all over boys

Catch a ride
Catch a ride
Get me out of here before I die
I won't need no road map
Out of this town
Catch a ride
Catch a ride
Get me out of here before I die
I'll be buried by strangers 
Or eaten by flies
If I can't find a 
Catch a ride

Catch-a-Riiiiiiiiiiiide

The red rum runner was a faithful ship
With a faithful crew
On a fateful trip
Smelled a strange breeze 
Sailed off into the mist
Red rum runner
Did it ever exist

Call it an island 
Call it my home
When I'm with her I am
Never alone
I search all my lonely life
Til there's nothing left
Just a red rum runner
And the sun in the west

Boarding the cannons
Pacing the tide
"It looks like eternity"
The old man sighed
It's blue and it's green
And it's cold and it's mean,
It can take what you hold
Or it can restore your soul

The red rum runner never
Told me goodbye
Just a ship in a bottle 
And I'm sailing inside
I'll search all my lonely life
Til there's nothing left
Just a red rum runner
And the sun in the west

Red Rum Runner

I think of all the nights
I remember all the days
It got so cold
But we were in a gold
and rosy haze
There was music all around
In the noise and crowd downtown
You can leave your shoes at home
When you hold me close
I don't touch the ground

Feel free
To knock me to my knees
Feel free
To keep me company
Feel free
To lie to me
Make me believe
You'll take me with you
When you leave

When you cross my mind
It never feels like goodbye
Perfect days in perfect waves
In all the memories that shine
Don't put me off
Don't say we don't have time
I'm the only catch
That doesn't mind
Hangin on your line

That summer burned like cheap liquor
All charred by the young and smiling sun
we'd drive an hour out of town
so nobody'd hear us making love
and you said you'd never come back
but your promises don't keep
you know our love never died
no it only fell asleep

Feel Free

Is it Mexican jail? Is it hell? Mexican hell? Betcha didn't know the dark lord is a Rusty Cotton fan.

Most days I wake up
Wishing I didn't 
Turn left into Mexico
And wind up in prison
Now there's chains on my hands
And the blood of a man
Who I caught getting fucked
By my ex-best woman

Oh the first thing I'll do
When I get to hell
As soon as I hear 
Them devilish bells
Before I even get
To minding the smell
Is to make sure that you're burning down here as well

This border town cell
Has a hell of a smell
It's all fire and brimstone
And barbequed sinners
Between screams and wails
I swear the jailer has scales
Laughs as he flashes his forked tongue and tail

Oh the first thing I'll do
When I get to hell
As soon as I hear 
Them devilish bells
Before I even get
To minding the smell
Is to make sure that you're burning down here as well

I've got to pay for my sins
Ain't no pearly gates let me in

Oh the first thing I'll do
When I get to hell
As soon as I hear 
Them devilish bells
Before I even get
To minding the smell
Is to make sure that you're burning down here as well

The First Thing I'll Do (When I Get to Hell)

I'm just a bad luck penny
Oh nobody wants me
And I'm getting kicked around
Like a hurricane tree
So flip me over girl
And won't you come on home with me
Because they call me misery
And you look like company

I've been a bad luck penny
Since I got to this town
Been a bad luck penny
Sittin' on the ground
Been a bad luck penny
Gettin' kicked around 
Bad luck penny
Because I always land face down

Same back east as it was out in Denver
And what happened down in Austin
I can't rightly remember
Must've been near the northern border
When my mind finally splintered
It'd take a mean piece of steel 
To save you from those winters

I've been a bad luck penny
Since I got to this town
Been a bad luck penny
Sittin' on the ground
Been a bad luck penny
Gettin' kicked around 
Bad luck penny
Because I always land face down

I got too high and now I'll never get clean
I need a place to sleep but I'd settle for a place to lean
Just a bag of dope and a half burned smoke
And a can of cheap black beans 
Couple bad luck pennies
Me and old Patrick Greene

I've been a bad luck penny
Since I got to this town
Been a bad luck penny
Sittin' on the ground
Been a bad luck penny
Gettin' kicked around 
Bad luck penny
Because I always land face down

So hey whats in your hand girl
You don't know you're dreaming yet
You chased the straight again
But don't they all feel like winning bets

I've been a bad luck penny
Since I got to this town
Been a bad luck penny
Sittin' on the ground
Been a bad luck penny
Gettin' kicked around 
Been a bad luck penny
Yeah a bad luck penny
Because I always land face down

Bad Luck Penny

Do you ever get the feeling that the love of your life escaped from a mental institution? This song’s for you!

Crazy Women

Thorn

Oh Sobriety

Old Burlap Jacket

I'm more T.S. Eliot than W.C.W., more Edward Weston than Ansel Adams, more tater tots than french fries.

Rusty Cotton

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