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The Goodnight-Loving Trail Lyrics
Too old to wrangle or ride on the swing,
You beat the triangle and you curse everything.
If dirt was a kingdom, they you'd be the king.
On the Goodnight Trail, on the Loving Trail,
Our Old Woman's lonesome tonight.
Your French harp blows like the low bawling calf.
It's a wonder the wind don't tear off your skin.
Get in there and blow out the light.
With your snake oil and herbs and your liniments, too,
You can do anything that a doctor can do,
Except find a cure for your own god damned stew
CHORUS
The campfire's gone out and the coffee's all gone,
The boys are all up and they're raising the dawn.
You're still sitting there, lost in a song.
CHORUS
I know that some day I'll be just the same,
Wearing an apron instead of a name.
There's nothing can change it, there's no one to blame
For the desert's a book writ in lizards and sage,
Easy to look like an old torn out page,
Faded and cracked with the colors of age.
CHORUS
You beat the triangle and you curse everything.
If dirt was a kingdom, they you'd be the king.
Our Old Woman's lonesome tonight.
Your French harp blows like the low bawling calf.
It's a wonder the wind don't tear off your skin.
Get in there and blow out the light.
You can do anything that a doctor can do,
Except find a cure for your own god damned stew
The boys are all up and they're raising the dawn.
You're still sitting there, lost in a song.
Wearing an apron instead of a name.
There's nothing can change it, there's no one to blame
For the desert's a book writ in lizards and sage,
Easy to look like an old torn out page,
Faded and cracked with the colors of age.
Song Info
Submitted by
songmeanings On Feb 06, 2012
More Utah Phillips
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The Telling Takes Me Home
Rock Me to Sleep
Room for the Poor
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My favorite song by Utah, the song is about an old cowboy reluctantly working on a chuck crew as a cook and general camp hand (sometimes referred to as "old women") as they can no longer handle the riggers of riding (riding the swing meaning to the side of a herd) on a cattle drive up the Goodnight–Loving trail (a route stretching from Texas to Wyoming) left alone to tend to camp for the evening while the rest of the group are off enjoying themselves.
The song has unfortunately become even more relevant these days with longer living populations and fast changes to the job market more and more people are seeing the jobs they trained and worked for their whole lives becoming redundant, having to take any work they can do to keep themselves going.