Coming up this Saturday ... Jim Gleason's Little People - Part 2

From WWR

Trivia, story behind the song, etc.

Lyrics

In The Texas Sky (a song for Al Grierson)

Al Grierson rode to paradise on the flood near San Antone
When they found him they cremated
 that great storyteller’s bones.
His family divided bits of Al among his friends
To keep him in good company as they scattered him
to the winds.
While staring in my little vial and marveling at his dust
I neared the Canadian border, that line of mutual trust
Where travelers all despair before severe jack-booted thugs.
Too late I realized that Al resembled dangerous drugs.

Now I am quite respectable, though I hardly look the part.
Three border guards laid all my stuff out on a metal cart.
They opened up my knapsack and smiled coldly at my pain
And impounded that suspicious vial that held old Al’s remains.
“Hey, that’s my friend that’s not some drug like LSD or crack!”
They said “We’ll have to run some tests 
before we give him back.”
They took Al to the back room with a laboratory sign
And there the three decided they’d lay Al out in three lines.

Within an hour they’d set me free to get back on the train
They said the test took all the substance, all except one grain.
That bit of Al remains my dear companion more or less
For there’s more love in that one speck 
than mortal men possess.

In the Texas sky floats a little cloud
Where the spirits lie and they laugh out loud.
Al Grierson sings his story, though it takes a little time,
How he got snorted by the boys on the US-Canada line.

Frankie, Sam and Henry worked the border drug patrol
Protecting all of Canada from illegal goods, I’m told.
But lives change mysteriously and miracles come to pass
They broke the law too many times and lost their jobs at last.

Frankie moved to Luchenbach with wife and kids along
They thought he’d lost his bloomin’ mind 
when he took up writing songs
But they came to love the madness 
and the old bus they called home
For Frank became a gentler soul than they had ever known.

Sam once was a ladies’ man with a head of coal black hair
But one morning in the mirror he found very little there.
It was long and stringy stickin’ out beneath an old straw hat
But he found the woman of his dreams looking just like that.

Henry moved from Canada, sold everything he owned.
Mercedes, house, swimming pool, even gave away his phone.
In saffron robe and bowl you’ll find him begging on your street
With words of compassion for every stranger that he meets.

That happy grain is all I have of my departed pal
Each day I greet the artist formerly known as Al.
His love abides in this sad world in three men no one knows
Who stopped us at the borderline
Who treated us like royal swine
Until they snorted Alan David Grierson up their nose.
Until they snorted Alan David Grierson up their nose.

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