Marie Echols
Drivin' and Cryin'
But that’s life, isn’t it? One year
your days are spent driving
alone, collecting old songs like lightning
bugs in a jar ‘cause they give you something
to hold onto, and you need something
to hold onto since you don’t have
someone. And you must be stuck on the wrong
station, ‘cause life’s been more like a Hank song
than the harmonies of Johnny and June,
but that doesn’t stop you from wondering what that ring
of fire feels like. So you blare them out the windows
thinking that’ll do the trick, hurricane of hair held down
by a ball cap while those Wayfarers hide your eyes
‘cause you’re crying again. You were always crying
those days ‘cause Guy Clark once had the nerve
to say he had a tattoo with her name
right through his soul, and now “I love you”
were the only cuss words the world was afraid to say.
But the times they are a-changin’, and if you could
just go back and tell yourself what’s right
up the road, those days would’ve had a different tune.
You wouldn’t have hurt so much,
wouldn’t have questioned so much,
wouldn’t have burned so much
gas, ‘cause you’d know before too long, he’d be ruining
all those old songs with that harmony that can’t help
but make you think, Lord, they’ll never sound as good
after him. But there is no after
anymore, ‘cause this love thing isn’t just three minutes, three
chords and the truth, turn the station off when you pull on in
the drive. It’s everything changing except for the crying,
‘cause you’re so happy you can’t help but cry for the girl
that thought her life would be a Hank song until she died.