TOM RUSSELL Song Album 1. The Road to Bayamon Road to Bayamon 2. Blue Wing Poor Man’s Dream 3. Gallo del Cielo Poor Man’s Dream 4. Navajo Rug Poor Man’s Dream 5. A Bad Half Hour Cowboy Real 6. Claude Dallas Cowboy Real 7. The Rose of the San Joaquin The Rose of the San Joaquin 8. The Sky Abow, The Mud Below Song of the West 9. Hallie Lonnigan Song of the West 10. Alkali Song of the West 11. The Dreamin’ The Man from God Knows Where 12. Sitting Bull in Venice The Man from God Knows Where 13. Where the Dream Begins Borderland 14. What Work Is Borderland 15. Isaac Lewis Modern Art 16. Tijuana Bible Modern Art 17. Tonight We Ride Indians Cowboys Horses and Dogs 18. Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall? Immigration Suite THE ROAD TO BAYAMON BLUE WING All You possum-belley queens get out of here He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder Gypsy's out for blood tonight might have been a bluebird, I don't know She's got love and hate tattooed on her fist but he got stone drunk and he talked about She's drunk and she's ready to fight Alaska salmon boats and 45 below She used to run a little shot end beer joint Now she's a jockey on the Astro ride well he got that blue wing at Walla Walla She took me for a whirl one night and his cellmate was a Little Willy John Man it messed me up inside Willie, he was once a great blues singer so Wing & Willie wrote him up a song Ay-Ay-Ay, oh the rain How long can this rain go on sang, it's dark in here, can't see the light There's nothing sadder than a carnival but I look at this blue wing when I close my On the road to Bayamon eyes and I fly away, beyond these walls In a parking lot down in old San Juan up above the clouds, where the rain don't fall On the road to Bayamon on a poor man's dreams We set up the tents and the alibi joints And the freak show from Lyon well they broke blue wing in August in 1963 and blue wing moved on, picking apples in We had French Canadian racketeers the town of Wenatchee And rednecks from down South winter finally caught him in a rundown trailer And the Puerto Rican pistol boys park With a boa constrictor mouths on the south side of Seattle where the days grow long and dark Ay-Ay-Ay, oh the rain How long can this rain go on and he drank and he dreamt a vision of when There's nothing sadder than a carnival the seven still ran free On the road to Bayamon and his father's fathers crossed that wide old Bering sea Then the wirewalker started drinking hard the land belonged to everyone, there were old The payroll check never came songs yet to sing And somebody stoled a little twoheaded cat now, it's broken down to a cheap hotel and a The midway drown in rain tattooed prison wing Yeh, it rained through the month of April now, it's dark in here ... And the first two weeks of May And all across the island well he drank his way to heaven and that's I can hear the children sing where he died and no one knew his Christian name, and Ay-Ay-Ay, oh the rain there was no one there who cried How long can this rain go on but I dreamt that there was a service, a There's nothing sadder than a carnival preacher in an old pine box On the road to Bayamon and halfway through the service, the wing began to talk he said, it's dark in here ... GALLO DEL CIELO Carlos Zaragoza left his home in Casas Grandes when the moon was full No money in his pocket, just a locket of his sister framed in gold He rode into El Sueco, stole a rooster called Gallo Del Cielo Then he swam the Rio Grande with that fighter nestled deep beneath his arm. El Gallo Del Cielo was a rooster born in heaven so the legends say His wings they had been broken, he had one eye rollin' crazy in his head And he'd fought a hundred fights, and the legends say that one night near El Sueco They'd fought Gallo seven times, and seven times he'd left brave roosters dead. Hola, my Theresa, I am thinking of you now in San Antonio I have 27 dollars and the good luck of your picture framed in gold Tonight I'll put it all on the fighting spurs of Gallo Del Cielo And then I'll return to buy the land Villa stole from father long ago. Outside of San Diego, in the onion fields of Paco Monteverde The Pride of San Diego lay sleeping on a fancy bed of silk And they laughed when Zaragoza pulled the one-eyed del Cielo from beneath his coat But they cried when Zaragoza walked away with a thousand dollar bill. Hola, my Theresa, I am thinking of you now in Santa Barbara I have fifteen hundred dollars and the good luck of your picture framed in gold Tonight I'll put it all on the fighting spurs of Gallo Del Cielo And then I'll return to buy the land Villa stole from father long ago. Now the moon has gone to hiding and the lantern light spills shadows on a fighting sand Where a wicked black named Zorro faces Gallo del Cielo in the night But Carlos Zaragoza fears the tiny crack that runs across his rooster's beak And he fears he has lost the fifty thousand dollars riding on the fight. Hola, my Theresa, I am thinking of you now in Santa Clara Yes, the money's on the table, I am holding to your good luck framed in gold And everything we've dreamed of is riding on the spurs of Del Cielo I pray that I'll return to buy the land Villa stole from father long ago. Then the signal it was given, and the cocks rose together far above the sand El Gallo del Cielo sunk a gaff into Zorro's shiny breast They were separated quickly but they rose and fought each other thirty seven times And the legends say that everyone agreed that del Cielo fought the best. Then the screams of Zaragoza filled the night outside the town of Santa Clara As the beak of del Cielo lay broken like a shell within his hand And they say that Zaragoza screamed a curse upon the bones of Pancho Villa When Zorro rose up one last time and drove del Cielo through the sand. Hola, my Theresa, I am thinking of you now in San Francisco I have no money in my pocket, I no longer have your good luck framed in gold I buried it last evening with the bones of my beloved Del Cielo And I'll not return to buy the land Villa stole from father long ago. Do the rivers still run muddy outside of my beloved Casas Grandes? Does the scar upon my brother's face turn red when he hears mention of my name? Do the people of El Sueco curse the theft of Gallo del Cielo? Well, tell my family not to worry, I will not return to cause them shame. I suppose a lot of people have heard the story of how I quit the music business and moved to New York in 1980, with a wife and two little kids, my daughters Jessica and Shannon. I had a literary agent at William Morris, who was shopping a novel of mine. I wrote about four manuscripts and they all came close. I ended up in an attic out on Rockaway Beach, very much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I didn't write anything. I went nuts and got a job driving cab. That's when I met my guitar playing friend Andrew Hardin. He was driving cab. Well, the funny part of the story: I was driving through Rockaway Park at four in the morning and picked up Robert Hunter, the Grateful Dead lyricist. He had his guitar and a glass of Jack Daniels. He'd been doing a solo gig out there. So we're talking, and I tell him I'm songwriter. He says the usual: "Yeah, sure you are. Sing me one of your songs." And I had just written "Gallo del Cielo," the long song of mine about rooster fighting. Joe Ely and Ian Tyson recorded it. Hunter listens intently and smiles. Then he has me sing it again and again. We're riding around through Queens. He ran up the meter to 300 dollars and demanded a cassette tape of the song. He loved it. We got back to my house, and I woke up my wife and got a tape. I took him to the motel. He says he's gonna give it to the Dead or the New Riders or something. Off he goes. I don't expect to hear from him again, but I enjoyed the ride. He calls me up a few weeks later, and invites me to a concert at the Bitter End in NYC. Halfway through the show, I'm standing there half-drunk on his Jack Daniels, and he starts talking about a song he heard from a cab driver.