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The Bluegrass Widow
Robert Earl Keen

It's been five years come this autumn, she remembers well the day

The day the fever got him, and took him far away

Far away from always knowing that the love they shared was true

Far away the fiddler's bowing, the grass forever blue


It was in the dead of winter when her man first caught the chill

And he said he heard the angels singing Cabin on the Hill

Through the springtime he was groaning The good times are past and gone

By the summer she was moaning Old lover please come home


Chorus:

Now she stands out in the midnight in the moonlight all aglow

She prays to Carter Stanley Won't you please tell Bill Monroe

Rather be in some dark hollow or some dark deep shady grove

Than to be a bluegrass widow


Spoken word break:

I started listening to bluegrass music in Bryan Duckworth's rust red 1970 Ford Maverick.

Had an eight track tape deck and an eight track tape of Bill Monroe's Greatest Hits.

We used to skip second period chemistry and go over to the Shamrock station across the street from the high school and get a case of Texas Pride beer.

Charge it on my dad's credit card and get 'em to write it up as oil so dad never knew the difference.

Then we'd ride around and drink Texas Pride, listen to Bill Monroe.

Soon we got to be bluegrass experts.

And we'd stop in another Shamrock station and get another Texas Pride case, drink that and listen to the Stanley Brothers and then we'd go get a tape of Jim and Jesse and it was on to the Kentucky Colonels and Mack Wiseman and the New Grass Revival, Peter Rowan, and finally I got the brilliant idea one day to take all the greatest bluegrass song titles in the world and string 'em together to make this song right here,

The Bluegrass Widow.

Quite possibly the worst bluegrass song ever written.


I did this in tribute to the Front Porch Boys, which was a bluegrass band I was in in College Station, Texas.

We were a little four piece band, we played weddings and parties and out on the porch and beer joints and one weekend on a handful of cheap amphetamines, we decided to go to Crockett, Texas.

We entered the International Bluegrass Band Competition and took second place.

We could play faster than anybody in the competition.

The other two bands took first and third, respectively.

I met some friends and went off into the night separated from the Front Porch Boys and met back up with them in the cold, gray light of dawn, as the bluegrass songs say.

They were standing underneath a giant pine tree there in Crockett singing the rudest, most grotesque, nastiest bluegrass songs you've ever heard in your life.

I'm talking about the kind of song where not only is the character in the song dead by the end of the song, but he's been dismembered as well.

And the Front Porch Boys stopped and looked up at me just long enough to say, We're taking bluegrass music where it's never been before.

And we're not taking you with us ''cause you don't have that high and lonesome sound that bluegrass music requires. Well, I'm not one to fight failure. I packed up my stuff and left.

The Front Porch Boys broke up three days later when they realized I owned the pa system.


Will you miss me when I'm gone? were his final words to her

Darlin' think of what you've done, then replied his Knoxville girl

And the leaves had started turning when his mind began to fail

Then he broke down in a breakdown, now she wears a long black veil.


And she stands out in the midnight in the moonlight all aglow

She prays to Carter Stanley Won't you please tell Bill Monroe

Rather be in some dark hollow or some dark deep shady grove

Than to be a bluegrass widow


And she stands out in the midnight in the moonlight all aglow

She prays to Carter Stanley Won't you please tell Bill Monroe

Rather be in some dark hollow or some dark deep shady grove

Than to be a bluegrass widow


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Lyrics by Robert Earl Keen

  (My Home Ain't In The) Hall of Fame   (My Home Ain't In The) Hall Of Fame   A Border Tale   A Border Tragedy   All I Have Is Today   Barbeque   Beats The Devil   Billy Gray   Black Baldy Stallion   Blow You Away   Broken End Of Love   Coming Home Of The Son And Brother   Copenhagen   Corpus Christi Bay   Crazy Cowboy Dream   Daddy Had A Buick   Don't turn out the light   Don't Turn Out The Light   Down That Dusty Trail   Dreadful Selfish Crime   Fallin' Out   Fallin' Out   Farm Fresh Onions   Feelin' Good Again   Feelin' Good Again   For Love   Fourth Of July   Furnace Fan   Goin' Down in Style   Goin' Nowhere Blues   Goin' Down In Style   Goin' Nowhere Blues   Gravitational Forces   Gringo Honeymoon   Happy Holidays Y'all   Happy Holidays Y'all   Hello New Orleans   High Plains Jamboree   I Gotta Go   I Still Miss Someone   I Wanna Know   I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight   I Would Change My Life   I'll Be Here for You   I'll Go on Downtown   I'm Comin' Home   I'm Coming Home   I'll Be Here For You   I'll Go On Downtown   I'm Coming Home   If I Were King   It's The Little Things   It's The Little Things   Jennifer Johnson & Me   Jennifer Johnson & Me   Jennifer Johnson And Me   Lay Down My Brother   Leavin Tennessee   Let The Music Play   Levelland   Lonely Feeling   Long Chain   Love's A Word I Never Throw Around   Love's A Word I Never Throw Around   Lynnville Train   Lynville Train   Maria   Mariano   Merry Christmas From The Family   Mr. Wolf And Mamabear   New Life In Old Mexico   No Kinda Dancer   Not A Drop Of Rain   Not A Drop Of Rain (Live)   Oh Rosie   Out Here In The Middle   Over The Waterfall   Paint The Town Beige   Play A Train Song   Ready For Confetti   Ride   Road To No Return/carolina   Rolling By   Runnin' With the Night   Runnin' With The Night   Shades Of Gray   Show The World   Sing One For Sister   Snowin' On Raton   Snowin' On Raton (Live)   Snowin' On Raton   So I Can Take My Rest   Something I Do   Song For Kathy   Sonora's Death Row   Sonora's Death Row   Soul Of Man   Stewball   Still Without You/conclusion: Road To No Return   Swervin' In The Lane   Swervin' In The Lane   That Buckin' Song   That Buckin' Song (Live)   The Buckin' Song   The Buckin' Song   The Dark Side Of The World   The Five Pound Bass   The Front Porch Song   The Great Hank   The Raven And The Coyote   The Road Goes On And On   The Road Goes On Forever   The Traveling Storm   The Wild Ones   Then Came Lo Mein   These Years   Think It Over One Time   Throwin' Rocks   Throwin' Rocks   Tom Ames' Prayer   Tom Ames' Prayer   Top Down   Train Trek   Travelin' Light   Travelin' Light (Live)   Travelin' Light   Undone   Walkin' Cane   Walkin' Cane   Waves On The Ocean   What I Really Mean   Whenever Kindness Fails   Who Do Man   Who'll Be Looking Out for Me   Who'll Be Looking Out For Me   Wild Wind   Willie

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