Blue Wing

He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Ought 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

He said he got his blue wing up in Walla-Walla
And his cellmate there was a Little Willy John
Now Willie, he was once a great blues singer
And Blue Wing & Willie wrote him up a song

They said, it's dark in here, I can't see the sky
But I look at my 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 they paroled Blue Wing in August of 1963
And he moved North, picking apples to the town of Wenatchee
And when winter finally caught him, he's in a rundown trailer park
On the South side of Seattle where the days get grey and dark
And he drank and he dreamt a vision of when the Salmon 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 narrowed down to a cheap hotel
And a tattooed prison wing

He said it's dark in here, I can't see the sky
But I looking my 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 L.A., and that's where he died
And there was no one to knew his Christian name
And there was no one there to cry
But dreamed there was a funeral, a preacher and a cheap pine box
And halfway through the sermon old blue wing he began to talk

He said it's dark in here, I can't see the sky
But I look at my 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

On a poor man's dreams
On a poor man's dreams