Hat Check Girl Goodbye Butterfield Hat Check Girl - Goodbye Butterfield all songs © Annie Gallup. Peter Gallway, & Jerry Marotta except as noted. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1 Writers 2 Jagged Scar 3 Girls At The River 4 Grandma's Best China 5 Arrow 6 Crossroads Correctional 7 Tennessee Plates 8 A Thousand Stars 9 The Old You 10 Harry 11 Goodbye Butterfield 12 Remember Writers The boys drinking whiskey in Madison Park 5th Street East man the talk was cheap A river runs through a town just like any other town And we all were born to change the world Give me a quiet room some quiet time Do whatever you need I’ll be alone for a while We used to drink but no more and these years are like gravy Give me a quiet room, some quiet time, we’ll be together when the day is done My sweet wife left me for another drunk My kids, I couldn’t think about them very much My head was about to explode My hands were shaky and the words wouldn’t hold I wish we could move to Paris or Rome Maybe someday soon we’ll pack a few things and go As long as there’s me and you and a little bit of time It doesn’t really matter until the end of the line Give me a quiet room some quiet time Do whatever you need I’ll be alone for a while We used to drink but no more and these years are like gravy Give me a quiet room, some quiet time, we’ll be together when the day is done My sweet wife left me for another drunk My kids, I couldn’t think about them very much My head was about to explode My hands were shaky and the words wouldn’t hold (you were a stubborn man on your way to the edge you were the anvil I was the sledge but we forged this thing and went to work there's a deep, deep stillness that neither of us had never heard) Give me a quiet room some quiet time Do whatever you need I’ll be alone for a while We used to drink but no more and these years are like gravy Give me a quiet room, some quiet time, we’ll be together when the day is done Jagged Scar When my Grandma Flora was 3 years old She climbed from her crib in the afternoon and walked out the open door While her mother was busy with the baby who had a fever and a cough And no one saw Flora wander off She was barefoot and wearing a little sleeping shift It was fall and there was frost in the air My grandmother remembered the farm dog, Annie Stayed with her for awhile, then she charged off through the brush Later they all said Annie must have chased a bear And credited the dog with saving the child Little Flora found her way down the trail that led to the Little Dove We know this because when the Rowan brothers searched for her at dusk They saw her footprints in the muck along the bank and feared her drowned But by then she was safely home, Carried in the arms of a man that nobody had ever seen around My grandmother remembered the dark, smoky smell of him And how he sang to her all the way back to the cabin She remembered the odd cant to his teeth, the round cup of his ear And along his jaw, a jagged scar Of course there was a flurry when the child was found safe She was fussed over and the search was called And the stranger who had brought her home vanished like smoke Before he could be asked a single question And everyone praised the dog Annie for her bravery And gave her the bone they had saved to make soup A few years later, on a trip into Butterfield My grandmother who must have been six by then Saw a photo of a face of a man on a poster on a wall of the post office lobby And recognized him by his jagged scar Look, she said, that’s who brought me home Of course she didn’t understand at the time Why her mother went silent and pale Or why his name was whispered for weeks afterwards, at home, at church and on the street Whenever two grownups would meet and clutch their hearts My grandmother Flora told me this story, and with a sort of pride and incredulous awe Said the man who carried her safely home was Kid Curry, the outlaw The Girls at the River The north fork of the Little Dove cut across my grandfather’s land Where I ran wild as a boy All the child’s games I played with sticks and string and stone And anything that floated on the current Once I wandered past the boundary into Thomas Rowan’s land It was the summer I turned eleven to twelve And at the river’s bend I saw Thomas Rowan’s lovely daughters Walking naked into the water to bathe themselves I still had a child’s sense of mystery and wonder But breathless and watching, I felt my blood shift When they lifted their arms to wash their long dark hair Then bent to rinse in the stream The arc of their motion an unspeakable gift Thomas Rowan’s daughters Standing in thigh high water Move through the current of my dreams The arc of that moment is a lifelong gift Thomas Rowan’s daughters Standing in thigh high water Still move through the current of my dreams Grandma's Best China © Annie Gallup If I was a little girl once, I don't remember No, no, can't remember that But I know there was a time when my Grandma was alive And her house was soft as an old felt hat Grandma herself corseted, powdered and stockinged Into an impressive dignity She was the cornerstone on which my family balanced like a circus act She gave a sort of grace to our uncertainty Under Grandma's roof was a world unto itself With round corners, where everything was pretty I'd breathe in its sweet scents; it was beyond my life's experience This unchecked delight in femininity What will I ever love better than the deep mysteries Of her corner cupboard Under lock and key, in alluring secrecy Those treasures spoke to me like a lover When the flowers would bloom in the spring Grandma's magnolia tree burst into teacups It was all her best china and the birds would sing: Cup-of-tea cup-of-tea, sugar sugar, cheer-up Oh, best of everything, best of everything Grandma kept her house with the help of a hired girl she called Katy And a man who worked the yard He'd be out there on his knees among the roses and peonies She lived there 'til it got too hard They moved her away and they told her "Lie down, be still" They meant for eternity And she obeyed; she believed in the good book and heaven And the holy trinity When the flowers would bloom in the spring Grandma's magnolia tree burst into teacups It was all her best china and the birds would sing: Cup-of-tea cup-of-tea, sugar sugar, cheer-up Oh, best of everything, best of everything Arrow The way we walked together and the distance traveled High on Condor Mountain kicking gravel He found a broken arrowhead shining in the dirt Broken arrowhead tucked into the heart pocket of my shirt The way we walked together, wind against our face We were weathervanes turning together and aimed Like an arrow The nights I lay my head below his collarbone I thought the dangers were outside us, what did I know? I knew teeth and claws and wind and fire, but no The danger was inside him all along, secretly growing Up on Condor Mountain where the footpath narrows A red-tail tucked its wings and dove down on a singing sparrow Like an arrow The sky, the hills, the sunset all are silent So my conversations are one-sided One for love and mystery, for walking on alone Over bits of broken arrowhead, dust and clay and bones But late at night as half a moon was rising A shooting star flew across horizon to horizon Like an arrow Crossroads Correctional My name is William Sullivan, but here they call me sir Three decades in corrections. I’ll rest when I retire Each man born a mother’s son, each took his first sweet breath One day he’ll take his last; while he’s in here, I won’t lose faith Crossroads Correctional, inside these gothic walls Six hundred men on seven tiers, by god I know them all Here at the crossroads of decency and crime Truth and lies are doing time There’s a man named Robert Johnson, life without parole He never heard of Robert Johnson and the legend of the crossroads I let him use the music room. Jesse taught him how to play Now he sings those songs with haunted grace and the Devil turns away Crossroads Correctional, inside these gothic walls Six hundred men on seven tiers, by god I know them all Here at the crossroads of decency and crime Truth and lies are doing time In the glare of these florescent lights that don’t cast any shadows Far away from home, under orders they must follow In the trouble and the tedium, in the chaos and the clatter I say, don’t let these men disappear, make their time here matter My name is William Sullivan, in here they call me sir Three decades in corrections. I’d take three decades more I was born this side of Butterfield, it’s the only place I’ve known And all the men at Crossroads are so far away from home Crossroads Correctional, inside these gothic walls Six hundred men on seven tiers, by god I know them all Here at the crossroads of decency and crime Truth and lies are doing time Yes truth and lies… The Girl with the Tennessee Plates Tennessee plates and a pickup truck Cowboy boots, a bent penny for luck I’ve been up all night, now it’s almost light But it’s not too late… I’m still the girl with Tennessee plates I don’t know how I backed into this town It’s way too far north and I’ve been turned down and turned around What I do know, Charlie, is you’re a damned good man You came into a little money, kind of funny, oh yeah How we got into the habit of spending it all There was never enough and that’s the downfall And I had to get away but ‘til the day I die I’ll love you and miss you and time will go by Tennessee plates and a pickup truck Dan Post boots, a bent penny for luck I’ve been up all night and it’s getting light No it’s not too late yes I’m still the girl with Tennessee plates Well the Butterfield Bridge crosses over the tracks It’s a two-lane, it’s too slick, there’s no turning back Over there where they call you Chuck, the boys in the DeVille With their pills and their crystal and you with a empty pistol and a twenty dollar bill I'll call my brother in Nashville, he could send me the cash To buy some gas and a roadmap, I’ll be home in a flash To the Red River Valley, the green rolling hills Far away from your damned white powder and your little black pills Tennessee plates and a pickup truck Abilene boots, a bent penny for luck I’ve been up all night and the sun’s too bright But it’s still not too late… Tennessee plates A Thousand Stars From this rooftop, me and my girl It’s been a long, long drop We’ve come halfway around a darkening world To work and see this country No, money does not matter to us We are young we can do anything And our needs are few A thousand stars A thousand stars in every sky The same as home The same as here this winter night This town will hold us As long as winter holds the light Here together under a thousand stars My mother was a village girl My father born in Rotterdam Grandmother was fierce and strong And fought the Occupation I was born to love this world As I love this girl beside me We are travelers, wanderers And our families are far across this earth A thousand stars A thousand stars in every sky The same as home The same as here this winter night This town will hold us As long as winter holds the light Here together under a thousand stars A thousand stars... Come summer we will leave this place Though the people here have been good to us We will travel to the Western Slopes And sleep under the evening sky This girl is filled with wonder She loves me so it makes me weep And I am hers to hold As we walk this good green earth A thousand stars A thousand stars in every sky… The Old You © Annie Gallup I dreamed I met the old you Back when your old band played at Kodiac’s The room was dark, the stage lights were blue I sat alone in the back The old you was on fire At the microphone, the crowd was screaming The old you was high and wired That’s how I know I was dreaming When the band broke for beer I spoke to you As shy as if we’d never met I told the old you, ‘I love what you do” The old you lit a cigarette And there was nothing more to say So I backed away, waiting for time to go by The old you talked up a girl in a beret With wildness in her eye Oh imagine waking from that dream As if I’d slept twenty odd years Then turned to find you dreaming next to me Just like you had always been here Harry I cursed you blue that night I was drunk I guess I’ve done worse how I love that whiskey Work hard play hard drink hard sing loud Go home to my wife, such a beautiful life And they all say Harry he passed the bar And lost it all in the shut of an eye They put me down and I never woke up It was the heart they said, we’ve done this a thousand times But they lay me down and I never woke up I’d a barrister become, son of a working class mom A dad we called Red, oh we’d sip and we’d sing Round the old oak table, I still loved them so I worked this town and the backrooms as well And all us good lawyers can just go to hell And they say that Harry he passed the bar But lost it all in the shut of an eye They put me down and I never woke up It was the heart, they said, it’s a piece of cake But they lay me down and I never did wake What was I born to, from the time I was small I could sing to the heavens, I could sing for your soul I would sing for the devil when I sang for you all Night after night, oh night after night Night after night can’t you hear me still? Yes I cursed you then and I loved you as well There was a mean streak in me that the whiskey could spill But oh my wife, my good wife, cried through the night Now she moves through this life a Doctor and a Doctor’s wife And they all say Harry he passed the bar And lost it all in the shut of an eye They put me down and I never woke up It was the heart they said, we’ve done this a thousand times But they lay me down and I never woke up They lay me down and I never woke up They lay me down and I never woke up Goodbye Butterfield On a night so hot I couldn’t sleep, I said to myself Remember this night when the snow is six feet deep Remember everything because nothing lasts for long Then in the quiet after crickets and before the first sparrow’s song I dreamed I took a lover in the back seat of a Valiant And I woke up wanting to, but don’t have a Valiant, do I Goodbye, Butterfield, goodbye Goodbye, Butterfield, goodbye How many crows can you fit in a sugar maple? I ran out with my camera but the picture came out black And the noise was like that too, it was a solid racket And I stood there a long time shivering without a jacket, The weather changed so fast and so soon, so soon And I just had to watch until the crows took off to fly Goodbye Butterfield, goodbye Goodbye, Butterfield, goodbye I almost missed my shift at the Butterfield Theater When my Chevrolet got stuck in a drift and I had to walk I was frozen stiff when I finally made it there To the dusty reek of popcorn and the usher’s stinking hair But on the way I cut across the river and heard the ice creek under my feet I thought about the current underneath and how easy it would be to die Goodbye Butterfield, goodbye Goodbye, Butterfield, goodbye I lost my wristwatch, my backpack and one of my hoop earrings All on the same day. Shedding, I said But I retraced my footsteps across the bridge, up Spring Street And found the first crocus blooming underneath an apple tree Then the first warm wind blew and I unbuttoned my coat And then lost that too, and my keys and my driving wheel Goodbye Butterfield, goodbye Goodbye Butterfield, goodbye Remember I remember you Waiting for the Butterfield train And the gothic rooftop With the weathervane And the chaos and the clatter As the train pulled in the station How you never looked away From our silent conversation I remember you By the Little Dove Crickets singing Under a thousand stars, love You unbutton your shirt, Feel the first warm wind Walk naked into the water, I follow you in I remember you I remember you In a quiet room When the crocus bloomed At an old oak table And the sugar maple Writing prose Filled with crows I brought you a whisky I took your picture And a piece of cake Underneath the apple tree And we laughed at contradictions Gave you an arrowhead and said In the choices we make “Remember me”