Blue Wing Lyrics - The Long Way Around - 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 45 below 

Well, 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 

so Wing & Willie wrote him up a song 

(CHORUS) 

They sang, it's dark in here, can't see the light 

but I look at this blue wing when 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 

He moved north, picking apples in the town of Wenatchee 

And then winter finally caught him in a rundown trailer park 

on the south side of Seattle where the days grow grey and dark 

And he drank and he dreamt a vision of when the seven still ran free 

and his father's fathers crossed that wide old Bering sea 

and the land belonged to everyone, and there were old songs yet to sing 

now, it's broken down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing 

Now, it's dark in here... (repeat chorus) 

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 halfway through the sermon blue wing began to talk 

He said, it's dark in here... (repeat chorus)