Blue Wing

He had a blue wing

Tattooed on his shoulder

Might have been a blue bird

I don't know

But he gets stone drunk

And talk about Alaska

Salmon boats and forty-five below

But he got that blue wing in jail in Walla Walla

And his cellmate there was a Little Willy John

And Willy, he was once a great blues singer

So wingin' Willy wrote him up a song

He said, it's dark in here

I 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 the rain don't fall

On a poor man's dreams

They paroled blue wing in August of 1963

And he moved on, pickin' apples

To the town of Wenatchee

When the 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 father's, father's crossed that wild old Bering sea

The land belonged to everyone

There was old songs yet to sing

Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotel

And a tattooed prison wing

Said, it's dark in here

I 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 the rain don't fall

On a poor man's dreams

Well, he drank his way to LA

And that's where he died

But no one knew his Christian name

And there was no one there to cry

But I dreamt there was a service

A preacher and an old pine box

And half way through the sermon

Blue wing began to talk

He said, it's dark in here

I can't see the sky

Oh, but I look at this blue wing

And I close my eyes

And I fly away

Beyond these walls

Up above the clouds

Where the rain don't fall

On a poor man's dreams

On a poor man's dreams

On a poor man's dreams