Blue Wing - Dave Alvin

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

Where 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: 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 the rain don’t fall

On a poor man’s dreams

They paroled Blue Wing in August of 1963

And he moved on, 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 father’s 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 hotel and a tattooed prison wing

He said: 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 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 a cheap pine box

And half way through the service, Blue wing began to talk

He said: It’s dark in here, can’t see the sky

But I look at this blue wing, and I close my eyes

And then I fly away beyond these walls

Up above the clouds, where the rain don’t fall

On a poor man’s dreams

Yeah, yeah, on a poor man’s dreams

Yeah, yeah, on a poor man’s dreams