BLUE WING
(Tom Russell)

Recorded by : Dave Alvin; Tom Russell.


He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Well it might have been a blue bird I don't know
But he gets stone drunk and talks about Alaska
The salmon boats and 45 below

He said he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla
And his cellmate there was Little Willy John
And Willy he was once a great blues singer
And winging Willy wrote him up a song. He said…

CHORUS:
It's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where there ain't no fall (unsure of this word)
On a poor man's dreams.

They paroled Blue Wing in August, of 1963
He moved North picking apples to the town of Wenatchee
Then winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park
On the South side of Seattle where the days grow gray and dark

And he drank and he dreamt of visions when the salmon still ran free
And his fathers, fathers crossed that wild old Bering Sea
And the land belonged to everyone and there were old songs yet to sing
Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotels and a tattooed prison wing

CHORUS:

Well he drank his way to LA; And that's where he died
And no one knew his Christian name and there was no one there to cry
But I dreamt there was a funeral; A preacher and a cheap pine box
And half way through the service, Blue wing began to talk. He said…

CHORUS:

Hey hey, On a poor man's dreams;
Hey hey, On a poor man's dreams.