CARROLL COUNTY ACCIDENT
Porter Wagoner


Carroll County's pointed out as kind of square
The biggest thing that happens is the county fair,
I guess that's why we thought it such a big event,
What we call the Carroll County accident.

The wreck was on the highway just outside the line,
Walter Browning lost his life and for a time
It seemed that Mary Ellen Jones would surely die,
But she lived long enough for her to testify.

Walter Browning was a happy married man
And he wore a golden wedding ring upon his hand
But it was gone, nobody knew just where it went
He lost it in the Carroll County Accident.

Mary Ellen testified that he flagged her down,
Said he was sick and could she drive him into town,
No one ever doubted what she said was true,
'Cause she was well respected in the county too.

I went down to see the wreck like all the rest,
The broken glass the bloody seats the tangled mess,
But I found something no one else had ever seen,
Behind the dash in Mary's crumpled up machine.

A little match box circled by a rubber band,
And inside the ring from Walter Browning's hand,
It took awhile to figure out just what it meant,
The truth about the Carroll County accident.

By dark of night I dropped the ring into a well,
And took a sacred oath that I would never tell,
The truth about the Carroll County accident,
For the County ordered dad a marble monument,

Yes, I lost him in the Carroll County accident.