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 out in Walla Walla
And his cellmate there was Little Willy John
Oh, and Willy he was once a great blues singer
Yeah, and winging Willy wrote him up a song

He said it's dark in here, I 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 North 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

Well, he drank and he dreamt of visions
Where the salmon still ran free
And his fathers, fathers crossed that
Wide and 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

It's dark in here, I 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
And nobody 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 half way through the service, that Blue Wing began to talk

Said it's dark in here, I 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
On a poor man's dreams
On a poor man's dreams