Emmylou Harris

^F# Me and my best friend Lillian
And her ^F# blue tick hound dog Gideon
^B Sittin' in the front porch' coolin' in the shade
^F# Singin' every song the radio played
^C# Waitin' for the Alabama sun to go down
Two ^B red dirt girls in a red dirt town
Me and ^F# Lillian
Just ac ^F# ross the line and a ^C# little southeast of Me ^B ridian
^F# She loved her brother I remember back when
He was ^F# fixin' up a '49 Indian
He ^B told her "Little sister, gonna ride the wind
^F# Up around the moon and back again"
He ^C# never got farther than Vietnam
I was ^B standin' there with her when the telegram come
For ^F# Lillian
Now he's ^F# lyin' somewhere about a ^C# million miles from Me ^B ridian
She said "There's ^C# not much hope for a red dirt girl
Some ^B where out there is a great big world,
that's ^F# where I'm bound
And the ^C# stars might fall on Alabama, but ^B one of these days
I'm gonna swing my hammer ^F# down
Away from this ^C# red dirt town
I'm gonna make a joyful ^F# sound"
^F# She grew up tall and she grew up thin
^F# Buried that old dog Gideon
By a ^B crepe myrtle bush at the back of the yard
Her ^F# daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
^C# Got in trouble with a boy from town
^B Figured that she might as well settle down
So she ^F# dug right in
Across a ^F# red dirt line just a ^C# little southeast of Me ^B ridian
She ^C# tried hard to love him but it never did take
It was ^B just another way for a heart to break
So she ^F# learned to bend
But one ^C# thing they don't tell you 'bout the blues when you got Îem
You ^B keep on fallin' 'cause there ain't no bottom
There ^F# ain't no end, at least not for ^C# Lillian
^F# Nobody knows when she started her skid
She was ^F# only 27 and she had 5 kids
^B Coulda' been the whiskey, coulda been the pills
^F# Coulda been the dream she was tryin' to kill
But there ^C# won't be a mention in the news of the world
About the ^B life and the death of a red dirt girl named ^F# Lillian
Who never ^F# got any farther a ^C# cross the line than Me ^B ridian
Now the ^C# stars still fall on Alabama
To ^B night she finally laid that hammer ^F# down
Without a ^C# sound, in the ^F# red dirt ground
>From the album "Red Dirt Girl" by Emmylou Harris GRACD 103
Chords transcribed by Richard Kolarik
richard.kolarik@virgin.net
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
Any mistakes, e-mail me, and I will be duly embarrassed!