Blackhawk Lyrics
I a bookstore on St. Clair
While he pushed the burning ingots
In Dofasco stinking air
Where the truth bites and stings
I remember just what we were
As the noon bell rings for
Blackhawk and the white winged dove
I'll wipe the liquor from your lips
A small town hero never dies
He fades a bit and then he slips
Down into the blast furnance
In the heat of the open hearth
And at the punch clock he remembers
Blackhawk and the white winged dove
Pointing up into the sky
We fell down to our knees
Over there where the grass grew high
Love hunters in the night
Our faces turned into the wind
Blackhawk where are you know
Blackhawk and the white winged dove
We were Blackhawk where are you know
We were Blackhawk where are you know
On the banks of Lake Bear
Where I felt certain that I knew you
My cool and distant debonair
Now we drink at Liberty Station
Another cup of muscatel
Wrapped in the strong arms of the Union
Raisin' kids from raisin' hell
I've always thought it's about Emmylou and Gram Parsons. He's the "Black Hawk and she's the "White Wing Dove". Where are you now.
This song is a haunting one (perhaps literally) about a girl who works in a bookshop in St. Clair who falls in love with a blue collar worker who works at a Dolfasco (Dominian Foundaries and Steel Company). His job is to 'push' ingots into the blast furnace to heat and melt them. Her working day is punctuated by the 'noon bell' while he has to clock in with a 'punch clock'. He's a member of the union and they drink at Liberty Station. The union protects them (strong arms).
He's a small town hero, cool, distant and debonair. They meet and become lovers, making love in the long grass, with him still wearing his leather boots. She gives him a ring by Lake bear but does he still have it?
Maybe they have grown up and had children, "raising kids from raising hell" and as the years have passed he has "faded a bit" and developed a drink problem. She was certain that she knew him, but does she still know him now that time has passed and he has changed from the young, debonair mystery she thought she understood into a somewhat ordinary family man?
Or maybe there's a darker truth. The first verse starts in the present tense with her working in the bookshop, but he 'pushed' the ingots, in the past tense, so perhaps she is referring to something that happened in the past. The truth "bites and stings" - the truth being the hazardous fire that he works with in his daily job. At the end of the first verse the non bell is ringing, or tolling, for them and their love.
In the second verse her heart os aching as she thinks of him slipping down into the blast furnace, perhaps remembering their love in his last moments.
In the chorus she remembers his leather boots pointing upwards, heavenwards. They fall down onto their knees, repeating the link between making love and praying. "Over there" where the grass grew high could be where they made love, but also where he is buried. And why would they turn their faces into the wind while making love? More likely this is what she did at his funeral, as she asks, "Blackhawk, where are you now?"