Blue Wing

He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Well, it might have been a blue bird, I don’t know
But he gets stone drunk and talks about Alaska
The salmon boats and 45 below
He said he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla
Where his cellmate there was Little Willy John
And Willy, he was once a great blues singer
And winging Willy wrote him up a song
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 dreams
They paroled Blue Wing in August of 1963
And he moved on, picking 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 father’s 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
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 dreams
Well, he drank his way to LA, and that’s where he died
But no one knew his Christian name, and there was no one there to cry
But I dreamt there was a service, 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 then I fly away beyond these walls
Up above the clouds, where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man’s dreams
Yeah, yeah, on a poor man’s dreams
Yeah, yeah, on a poor man’s dreams