Karaoké Blue Wing Tom Russell

He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder

Well it might have been a bluebird I don't know

But he'd get stone drunk and talk about Alaska

The salmon boats and forty-five below

He said he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla and his cellmate there was a Little Willy John

And Willie he was once a great blues singer

And Wing and Willie wrote him up a song

He sang 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 dream

They paroled Blue Wing in August of nineteen sixty-three

He moved north pickin' 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 fathers' 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

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 dream

Well he drank his way to L.A. and that's where he died

And no one knew his Christian name and there was no one there to cry

But I dreamt there was a funeral

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 I fly away beyond these walls

Up above the clouds where the rain don't fall on a poor man's dream

Hey hey

On a poor man's dream

Hey hey

On a poor man's dream