Saturday, February 09, 2008
DRESS BLUES
posted 12:59 PM
What can you see from your window?
I can't see anything from mine.
Flags on the side of the highway
and scripture on grocery store signs.
Maybe eighteen was too early.
Maybe thirty or forty is too.
Did you get your chance to make peace with the man
before he sent down his angels for you?
Mamas and grandmamas love you
'cause that's all they know how to do.
You never planned on the bombs in the sand
or sleeping in your dress blues.
Your wife said this all would be funny
when you came back home in a week.
You'd turn twenty-two and we'd celebrate you
in a bar or a tent by the creek.
Your baby would just about be here.
Your very last tour would be up
but you won't be back. They're all dressing in black
drinking sweet tea in styrofoam cups.
Mamas and grandmamas love you.
American boys hate to lose.
You never planned on the bombs in the sand
or sleeping in your dress blues.
Now the high school gymnasium's ready,
full of flowers and old legionnaires.
Nobody showed up to protest,
just sniffle and stare.
But there's red, white, and blue in the rafters
and there's silent old men from the corps.
What did they say when they shipped you away
to fight somebody's Hollywood war?
Nobody here could forget you.
You showed us what we had to lose.
You never planned on the bombs in the sand
or sleeping in your dress blues.
No, no you never planned on the bombs in the sand
or sleeping in your dress blues.
-- Jason Isbell , on Sirens Of The Ditch
Thursday, February 07, 2008
THE DEVIL IS MY RUNNING MATE
posted 8:43 PM
The devil is my running mate.
This here is his favorite state
Sorry you folks had to wait.
He always likes to show up late.
No, that ain't a rainbow son.
It's streetlamps on petroleum
Let's pull in here and get us some.
Supplies are running out now.
It ain't the reason for the war.
That's meanness boy and nothing more.
They tried to do this all before,
but Daddy wouldn't let them.
Sometimes I don't know what I got into.
Sometimes I can't stand to read my name.
Sometimes I can only hear their voices
casting me back from where I came.
The devil is my running mate.
Confusion is his favorite state.
Surely you folks can relate.
I know we've gathered here to hate.
It doesn't matter who we blame
as long as you all hear a name.
All them bastards look the same.
Everyone is guilty.
Everybody look away.
Look away. Look away.
It doesn't matter what I say.
It's what I do that's shifty.
Sometimes I don't know what we got into.
Sometimes I don't think I know a thing.
Sometimes I can't even see the trees now
for the flames, for the flames.
The devil is my running mate,
and this here is his favorite state.
There ain't no other candidate.
It wouldn't matter anyway.
The devil is my running mate.
The devil is my running mate.
The devil is my running mate.
-- Jason Isbell , on Sirens Of The Ditch
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
OH SHIT I'M A BUTTER HEAD
posted 2:31 PM
The Indian Nipple Song