https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giVAjnRS5g0Well the raven is a wicked bird
His wings are black as sin
And he floats outside my prison window
Mocking those within
And he sings to me real low
It's hell to where you go
For you did murder Kate McCannon
When I first met Tom McCannon
I was working in the mines
Said he had himself a dark haired daughter
With long, green eyes
And when she and I did meet
She was bathing in the creek
Prettiest girl in the whole damn holler
That ain't no lie
So I went a courtin' Kate McCannon
Got me a job and I quit my ramblin' and
Every day I'd save
A quarter of my pay
I could buy a diamond ring
Lord and one day I come home to find
My darlin' angel's not inside
So I made for the creek
Where she and I did meet
And found her with some other lover
And I put three rounds into Kate McCannon
Comments
Shot her dead
Drank 4 Bud Heavies and then opened the bomb bay doors on the Enola Gay.
Then came Owen, but it was worth it.
https://youtu.be/PbgIBitqvHo?si=ZPYZxhiRyaDs_2-o
https://youtu.be/mG0Vd4RX1yg?si=S75JyzhfJJXuqxLS
Well, I loved a girl
She lived out in Pecos, and pretty as she could be
And I worked the rigs on out in Odessa
To give her whatever she needs
But that girl, she run with an oil company bum
'Cause the diamond was not on her hand
And he left her soon 'neath the big loving moon
To go out and X-ray the land
Now I sit in my car at the New Rainbow Bar downtown
And the frost on the windshield shines toward the sky
Like a thousand tiny diamonds in the lights of loving county
Well, l walked in that bar and I drank myself crazy
Thinking about her and that man
When in walked a woman, looking richer than sin
And ten years worth of work on her hand
Well, I followed her home and when she was alone
Well, I put my gun to her head
And I don't recall what happened next at all
But now that rich woman, she is dead
Now I drive down the highway
Ten miles from my sweet baby's arms
And the moon is so bright it don't look like night
And the diamond how it sparkles in the lights of loving county
But she opened that door and I knelt on the floor
And I put that ring in her hand
Then she said, "I do" and she'd leave with me soon
To the rigs out in South Alabama
Well, I told her to hide that ring there inside
And wait 'til the timing was good
And I drove back home and I was alone
'Cause I thought that she understood
The next night an old friend just called me to wish us both well
He said, he'd seen her downtown, sashaying around
And her diamond how it sparkled in the lights of loving county
Well that sheriff, he found me out wandering
All around El Paso the very next day
You see, I'd lost my mind on that broken white line
Before I even reached Balmorhea
Well, now she's in Fort Worth and she's just giving birth
To the son of that oil company man
And they buried that poor old sheriff's dead wife
With the ring that I stole on her hand
And sometimes they let me look up at that East Texas sky
And the rain on the pines, oh Lord, how it shines
Like my darling's little diamond in the lights of loving county
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_e0bCCIYDU
Johnny’s better murder tune
One of my favorite lines in recent music history is from Colter Wall "Ballad of a Law Abiding Citizen:
You see I
Did not much care
For the way
That he'd sit and glare
So I closed
His eyes for good
With a bar-room chair
"And they smiled at each other
When he walked through the door
And they died with their smiles on their faces
They died with a smile on their face"
“I searched til I found them, then I cursed at the sight
Of their sleeping shadows in the cold neon light
In the dark morning silence I placed the gun to her head
She wore red dresses, but now she lay dead”
Cannot overlook this…
“The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor”…
many people died on this album
“Well I carved a cross from live oak
And a box from shortleaf pine
Buried her so deep
She touched the water table line”
Jason Isbell growth as a songwriter post Drive by Truckers has been amazing