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Wayside/Back In Time Lyrics
Standing on the corner with a nickel or a dime
There use to be a rail car to take you down the line
Too much beer and whiskey to ever be employed
And when I got to Nashville, it was too much soldiers joy
Wasted on the wayside, wasted on the way
If I don't go tomorrow, you know I'm gone today
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
Black highway all night ride
Watching the times fall away to the side
Clear channel way down low
Is comin' in loud and my mind let go
Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall
If I can't have you all the time, I won't have none at all
Oh, I wish I was in Frisco in a brand new pair of shoes
I'm sittin' here in Nashville with Norman's Nashville blues
So come all you good time rounders listenin' to my sound
And then drink a round to Nashville 'fore they tear it down
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
Hard weather, drivin' slow
Buggies and the hats in town for the show
Oh darlin', the songs they played
All I got left was the love we made
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
There use to be a rail car to take you down the line
Too much beer and whiskey to ever be employed
And when I got to Nashville, it was too much soldiers joy
Wasted on the wayside, wasted on the way
If I don't go tomorrow, you know I'm gone today
I want to go back when you were mine
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
Watching the times fall away to the side
Clear channel way down low
Is comin' in loud and my mind let go
If I can't have you all the time, I won't have none at all
Oh, I wish I was in Frisco in a brand new pair of shoes
I'm sittin' here in Nashville with Norman's Nashville blues
So come all you good time rounders listenin' to my sound
And then drink a round to Nashville 'fore they tear it down
I want to go back when you were mine
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
Hard weather, drivin' slow
Buggies and the hats in town for the show
Oh darlin', the songs they played
All I got left was the love we made
I want to go back when you were mine
Back babe, back in time
I want to go back when you were mine
Song Info
Submitted by
smallwonderrobot On Sep 20, 2006
More Gillian Welch
Time (The Revelator)
I Dream A Highway
Everything Is Free
The Way It Goes
Hard Times
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LOVE this song...
"Soldier's Joy" is a reference to the combination of morphine,whiskey & beer that many late 19th and early 20th-century servicemen(starting in the Civil War era and continuing through WW1) became addicted to after being given morphine for pain.
"Peaches in the summertime/apples in the fall" is from the old American folk song "Cindy",which may date back to the early 1900s.
"The buggies and the hacks" = horses and carriages.
On a more personal note some of the other lyrics really reasonate with me..."wasted on the wayside,wasted on the way"...someone who has wasted and lost their best years on the road of life to hard luck, bad decisions, unfortunate circumstances, substance abuse,etc...then you reach an age where you don't know what to do with yourself anymore and feel wasted, forgotten and left by the wayside.
I think the last lyric is actually "oh darlin',the songs they played/are all I've got left of the love we made"...sometimes old familiar songs are all someone has left to remind them of a better time and place.
Norman's Nashville Blues is a reference to Norman Blake's album, Nashville Blues. Norman played with Johnny Cash for years. His song, "Ginseng Sullivan" appears on Gillian Welch & Dave Rawling's album of covers "All the Good Times."
I just found the lyric "Peaches in the summertime Apples in the fall If I can't have the one I love I won't have none at all" in the "Traditional" song Shady Grove, as recorded by Crooked Still, 2004. I knew I'd heard the words before, and here I am. This CD is from 2003. I looked further, the words are definitely from Shady Grove, at least as far back as 1966 by Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys. The song is as old as 1915, may go back to England or Scotland.
Wow, this is the second time this week I've looked for lyrics on this site, and the second time this week it's gotten my favorite line wrong. I really think (really HOPE) the line is:
"Oh darlin', the songs they played! All I got left is the love we made..."
WHAT A GREAT LINE!! Awesome song, and check out the excellent cover by Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers, too.