The Bluegrass Widow

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 'cuz 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"