Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Hot off the Presses


Tim O'Brien's latest song, which chronicles a wacky story I hadn't known about. Sing to the tune of "Pretty Boy Floyd" or hear Tim sing it on his website (with Jerry Douglas on Dobro).

The Ballad Of Christopher Daniel Gay © 2007 Tim O’Brien
(date of creation Jan 28, 2007)

Come all you good time people and a story I will tell
Of Christopher Daniel Gay, you bloggers know him well
His mama said his heart was as big as his head
And he became a car thief to keep his family fed

The cops stopped him in Texas where he was on the lamb
They found out from headquarters that he was wanted in Alabam
The Prisoner Transport Service was takin him back to pay
It was at a road side pit stop he made his get away

Stole a pickup in Carolina, then a Wal-Mart truck with eighteen wheels
He drove toward his dyin mama in the Cheatham county hills
And it’s down those lanes and back roads the police made their chase
And he almost made her trailer, he almost saw her face

A witness said it sounded like a barn a fallin hard
When he ran that semi off the road into the neighbor’s yard
He ran off through the woods to a Whites Creek tour bus lot
He picked a silver and blue one and ran that diesel hot

His mama told the papers, “What he done was wrong
But” she said “he also knows his mama don’t have long
The county sheriff said that if he turned himself in
They’d take him to his dyin mama before they took him to the pen

It was down in Lakeland, Florida he stopped at a NASCAR track
They wrote down his license number and they finally brought him back
Now the chase it started Sunday, and when Saturday evening fell
They caught him in a tour bus that belonged to belonged to Crystal Gayle

As I tell you all this story, I wouldn’t be surprised
If the color of that stage coach matched his mama’s eyes
It’s through this world I’ve rambled and through this world I’ve roamed
But I never knew an outlaw with a tour bus for his home

If anybody wanted these lyrics for to get
Just type and click your browser on Tim O’Brien dot net

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