Blue Wing

He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder Well, it might have been a blue bird, I don't know But he gets stone drunk and talks about Alaska The salmon boats and 45 below He said he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla Where his cellmate there was Little Willy John And Willy, he was once a great blues singer And winging Willy wrote him up a song He said: It's dark in here, can't see the sky But I look at this blue wing, and I close my eyes And I fly away beyond these walls Up above the clouds, where the rain don't fall On a poor man's dreams They paroled Blue Wing in August of 1963 And he moved on, picking apples, to the town of Wenatchee Then winter finally caught him in a run-down trailer park On the south side of Seattle, where the days grow gray and dark And he drank and he dreamt of visions, when the salmon still ran free And his father's fathers crossed that wild old Bering Sea And the land belonged to everyone, and there were old songs yet to sing Now, it's narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing He said: It's dark in here, can't see the sky But I look at this blue wing, and I close my eyes And I fly away beyond these walls Up above the clouds, where the rain don't fall On a poor man's dreams Well, he drank his way to LA, and that's where he died But no one knew his Christian name, and there was no one there to cry But I dreamt there was a service, a preacher and a cheap pine box And half way through the service, Blue wing began to talk He said: It's dark in here, can't see the sky But I look at this blue wing, and I close my eyes And then I fly away beyond these walls Up above the clouds, where the rain don't fall On a poor man's dreams Yeah, yeah, on a poor man's dreams Yeah, yeah, on a poor man's dreams