Red Dirt Girl ( Emmylou Harris ) Lyrics - Mark Knopfler

Me and my best friend Lillian 

And her blue tick hound dog Gideon, 

Sittin on the front porch cooling in the shade 

Singin every song the radio played 

Waitin for the Alabama sun to go down 

Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town 

Me and Lillian 

Just across the line 

And a little southeast of Meridian. 

She loved her brother I remember back when 

He was fixin' up a '49 Indian 

He told her 'Little sister, gonna ride the wind 

Up around the moon and back again." 

He never got farther than Vietnam, 

I was standin there with her when the telegram come 

For Lillian. 

Now he's lyin somewhere 

About a million miles from Meridian. 

She said there's not much hope for a red dirt girl 

Somewhere out there is the great big world 

Thats where I'm bound 

And the stars might fall on Alabama 

One of these days I'm gonna swing 

My hammer down 

Away from this red dirt town 

I'm gonna make a joyful sound. 

She grew up tall and she grew up thin 

Buried that old dog Gideon 

By a crepe myrtle bush at the back of the yard, 

Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard 

Got in trouble with a boy from town 

Figured that she might as well settle down 

So she dug right in 

Across a red dirt line 

Just a little southeast of Meridian 

Yeah she tried hard to love him but it never did take 

It was just another way for the heart to break 

So she learned to bend. 

One thing they don't tell you about the blues 

When you got 'em 

You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom 

There ain't no end. 

At least not for Lillian. 

Nobody knows when she started her skid, 

She was only 27 and she had five kids. 

Coulda been the whiskey, 

Coulda been the pills, 

Coulda been the dream she was trying to kill. 

But there won't be a mention in the news of the world 

About the life and the death of a red dirt girl 

Named Lillian 

Who never got any further 

Across the line than Meridian. 

Now the stars still fall on Alabama 

Tonight she finally laid 

That hammer down 

Without a sound 

In the red dirt ground... 

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