Red Dirt Girl  written by  Emmylou Harris



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

richard.kolarik@virgin.net


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