Red Dirt Girl

[Verse] Me and my best friend Lillian And her blue tick hound dog Gideon Sittin' on the front porch coolin' 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 south-east of Meridian She loved her brother I remember back when He was fixin' up a '49 Indian He told her, Little sister, going to ride the wind Up around the moon and back again He never got farther 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 She said, "There's not much hope for a red dirt girl Somewhere out there is a great big world That's where I'm bound And the stars might fall on Alabama But one of these days I'm going to swing My hammer down Away from this red dirt town I'm going to make a joyful sound" She grew up tall and she grew up thin Buried that old dog Gideon By a crepe myrtle bush in 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 a red dirt line Just a little south east of Meridian Yes, 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 about the blues When you got them You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom And there ain't no end, least not for Lillian Nobody knows when she started her skid She was only 27 and she had five kids Could-a been the whiskey, could-a been the pills Could-a been the dream she was trying to kill But there won't be a mention in the news of the world About the life and the death of a red dirt girl Named Lillian Who never got any farther 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