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Pulaski Lyrics

She was fresh out of college
First one in her family to go
And California seemed like heaven
Pulaski, Tennessee was her home

She worked on losing her Southern accent
Turned her back on her Baptist ways
She bought some clothes that barely covered
Her fair-skinned body, went to Nashville, and caught a plane

Well, the clouds, they rushed beneath her
As the L.A. smog filled the air
And she smiled when the airlock opened
The Pacific breeze blew through her hair

She thought about the boys from Alabama
Came into town every Friday night
And drank beer out of great big glass quart bottles
And left their trail of blood and tears behind

She thought the men in California would be different
She'd grown up watching them on her TV
But the men she came to know in California
Left her longing for Pulaski, Tennessee

Good ideas always start with a full glass
And just breathing here could make a girl's nose bleed
Dreams here live and die just like a stray dog
On a dirt road somewhere in Tennessee

The store-fronts are all filled up with eyeballs
As the policemen clear out the street
For a line of cars with their headlights burning
Driving slow through Pulaski, Tennessee
Song Info
Submitted by
unpopularpoet On Jul 19, 2011
3 Meanings

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Cover art for Pulaski lyrics by Drive-By Truckers

I guess I'll take the first stab at this one. Most of the song is obvious except for the last few lines. I bet I'd listened to it 40 times or more before it popped into my mind that she committed suicide after she got to LA and didn't "make it" in the big city.

"The storefronts are all filled up with eyeballs As the policemen clear out the street For a line of cars with their headlights burning Driving slow through Pulaski, Tennessee"............in plain english, her funeral procession rolling through a small town with everyone watching

I was thinking the same thing. She kills herself in the end, another victim of the way LA chews up and spits out dreams every single day. The song is actually eerily similar to the plot line from the movie Mulholland Drive.

Cover art for Pulaski lyrics by Drive-By Truckers

She didnt commit suicide- she OD'd on cocaine. "just breathing here can make a girls nose bleed."

Cover art for Pulaski lyrics by Drive-By Truckers

Not a drug overdose. A beating to death. Drunken boyfriends and a history of hiding the abuse. The murder album, folks.

 
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