Red Dirt Girl

G
G
Me and my best friend Lillian
G
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon
C
Sittin' on the front porch' coolin' in the shade
G
Singin' every song that the radio played
D
Waitin' for the Alabama sun to go down
        C
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town
            G
Me and Lillian
       G                              D                         C
Just across the line and a little southeast of Meridian


G
She loved her brother I remember back when
            G
He was fixin' up a '49 Indian
     C
He told her "Little sister, gonna ride the wind
G
Up around the moon and back again"
      D
He never got farther than Vietnam
        C
I was standin' there with her when the telegram come
       G
For Lillian
               G                                    D                           C
Now he's lyin' somewhere about a million miles from Meridian


                           D
She said "There's not much hope for a red dirt girl
C
Somewhere out there is a great big world,
         G
that's where I'm bound
             D                                                C
And the stars might fall on Alabama, but one of these days
                                             G
I'm gonna swing my hammer down
                        D
Away from this red dirt town
                            G
I'm gonna make a joyful sound"


G
She grew up tall and she grew up thin
G
Buried that old dog Gideon
       C
By a crepe myrtle bush at the back of the yard
       G
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
D
Got in trouble with a boy from town
C
Figured that she might as well settle down
           G
So she dug right in
              G                          D                         C
Across a red dirt line just a little southeast of Meridian


D
She tried hard to love him but it never did take
C
It was just another way for a heart to break
           G
So she learned to bend
             D
But one thing they don't tell you 'bout the blues when you got 'em
       C
You keep on fallin' 'cause there ain't no bottom
          G                                         D
There ain't no end, at least not for Lillian


G
Nobody knows when she started her skid
             G
She was only 27 and she had 5 kids
C
Coulda' been the whiskey, coulda been the pills
G
Coulda been the dream she was tryin' to kill
               D
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
                C                                                              G
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl named Lillian

                 G                      D                            C
Who never got any farther across the line than Meridian

              D
Now the stars still fall on Alabama
      C                                                    G
The night she finally laid that hammer down
D                                  G
Without a sound, in the red dirt ground


>From the album "Red Dirt Girl" by Emmylou Harris GRACD 103

Chords transcribed by Richard Kolarik



Malcolm Burn    bass, electric guitar, drum box programming
Emmylou Harris  vocal, acoustic guitar
Ethan Johns     omnichord
Daryl Johnson   percussion, bass pedals
Buddy Miller    electric guitar