Blue Wing Chords by Tom Russell

[Am] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Well, it might have been a bluebird.
[Dm] I don't know
_ But he'd get stoned drunk talk about Alaska
_ _ [G] Salmon boats and 45 [C] below
He said he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla
And his cellmate there was little [D] Willie John
[Dm] _ [D] And Willie he was once a great [Dm] blues singer
And [G] wing and Willie wrote him [C] up a song
They said it's dark in here
Can't [F] see the sky
But [C] I look at this blue wing and I [G] close my eyes
And I [C] fly away _
[F] Beyond these walls
Up [C] above the clouds
Where [G] there ain't no fall on a [Am] poor man's dream
They [G] _ _ _ _ [C] paroled blue wing in August of 1963
He moved North picking Apple [Dm] to the town of Wenatchee
And then winter finally caught him in a rundown trailer park
[G] on the south side of Seattle
[C] Where the days grow gray and dark
And he drank and he dreamt a vision
When the salmon still ran free and his father's father's crop
[Dm] That wild old Bering Sea and the land belonged to everyone and there were old songs yet the same
[G] Now it's narrowed down to a cheap [C] hotel and a tattoo prison wing.
Hey stark in here
Can't [F] see the sky
But [C] I look at this blue wing and I [G] close my eyes
And I [C] fly away
Beyond [F] these walls
Up [C] above the clouds
Where there [G] ain't no fall on a [Am] poor man's dream
Well, [G] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ [C] he drank his way to LA and that's where he died
And no one knew his Christian [Dm] name and there was no one there to cry
but I dreamt there was a funeral a
preacher in a cheap fine box [G] and
halfway through the sermon
[C] Blue wing began to talk.
He said it's dark in here
Can't [F] see the sky
But [C] I look at this blue wing and [G] I close my [Dm] eyes
And [C] I fly away _
[F] Beyond these walls
Up [C] above the clouds
Where [G] there ain't no fall
on [Am] a poor man's dream _
[G] _ On [Am] a poor man's dream _
[G] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _