Blue Wing

He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Mighta been a blue bird, I dunno
But he'd get stone drunk and talk about Alaska
Salmon boats and 45° below
Well, he got that blue wing in jail in Walla Walla
And his cellmate there was Little Willie John
Willie, he was once a great Blues singer
So Wing and Willie wrote 'em up a song

Said "It's dark in here
I can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing, and I close my eye
And I fly away
Beyond these walls
Up above the clouds
Where the rain don't fall
On a poor man's dream"

Well, they paroled Blue Wing in August of 1963
And he moved on picking apples, to the town of Wenatchee
The winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park
On the south side of Seattle, where the days grow gray and dark
Well he drank and he dreamt a vision
Of when the Seven still ran free
And his fathers' fathers crossed that wide old Bering Sea
And the land belonged to everyone
There was old songs yet to sing
Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotel
And a tattooed prison wing

Said "It's dark in here
I can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing, and I close my eye
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 LA, and that's where he died
No one knew his Christian name
And there was no one there who cried
But I dreamt there was a service
A preacher and an old pine box
Halfway through the sermon, Blue Wing began to talk

He said "It's dark in here
I can't see the sky
Oh, 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"
On a poor man's dream
On a poor man's dream