C Dm
He had a Blue Wing tattooed on his shoulder. Well it might have been a bluebird I don't know.
Dm G C
But he'd get stone drunk and talk about Alaska. Salmon boats and forty-five below
C Dm
He said he got that Blue Wing up in Walla Walla. Where his cellmate there was a little Willy John
Dm G C
Willy he was once a great blues singer. And Wing and Willy wrote him up a song:
C F C G
He said its dark in here, can't see the sky. But I look at this Blue Wing and I close my eyes
C F C G
Then I fly away, beyond these walls. Up above the clouds, where the rain don't fall.
Am G Am G
On a poor man's dreams? (yaa, On a poor man's dreams, yaa)
C
Well they paroled Blue Wing in August, 1963
C Dm
And he moved on pickin? apples to the town of Wenatchee.
Dm
Winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park,
Dm G C
On the south side of Seattle where the days grow gray and dark
C
And he drank and he dreamt a vision of when the salmon still swam free
C Dm
And his father?s father?s crossed that wide old Bering Sea.
Dm
And the land belonged to everyone, and there were old songs left to sing.
Dm G C
Now it?s narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing.
C
Well he drank his way to L.A. and that?s where he died. But no one knew his Christian name
C Dm
And there was no one there to cry. But I dreamt there was a service.
Dm
A preacher and an old pine box.
Dm G C
And halfway through the sermon you know Blue Wing began to talk
Chorus