Working Girl Blues (11 page)

This song from the early ‘70s usually gets a few knowing grins from both the male and female audience. It's sort of a rebuttal against all those songs about “rambling men.” “Don't fall in love with me, darling, I'm a rambler.” “I'm gonna leave her crying in the smoke along the track.” Part of me identified with the rambling impulse, and another part would like to have had a home-loving man, except when I want to hit the road.

You've been handing me a lot of sweet talk

About things you want us to do

You talking about settling down

In a dream house built for two

Well I hate to disappoint you

But I don't fit into that plan

For I'm a ramblin' woman and you're a home-loving man

Chorus:

Yes I'm a ramblin' woman

And I hope you understand

For you know a ramblin' woman

Is no good for a home-lovin' man

So take all of that sweet talk

And give it to some other girl

Who'd be happy to rock your babies

And live in your kind of world

For I'm a different kind of woman

Got a different set of plans

And you know a ramblin' woman

Is no good for a home-lovin' man

Repeat Chorus

 

Your Greedy Heart

Here's another one of those “relationship” songs that I wrote in 1980. It's about people that aren't suited for one another. You often see people in relationships where one person does most of the giving, and the other one does all the taking. There's no one to blame; they chose each other.

I have waited long in silence, while you realized your dreams

But you take and take and take love, never turn a hand for me

Like a teardrop in an ocean, grain of sand upon a beach

I could journey on forever to a heart that's out of reach

Chorus:

Oh what more can I give you than I've not already give

I have only one heart, one life to live

You take while I go wanting unmindful of your greed

One lifetime is too short to give you all that you need

The walls of love have tumbled 'round me, left me standing by myself

As I search among the ruins for a trace that might be left

And if all the love I've given was just wasted on your greed

I can't stand another moment trying to satisfy your need

The flame of love so warm and tender, could never melt your selfish heart

The Gods of love could all surrender, but from tears you'd never part

When a flower blooms for loving oh it needs such tender care

I have grown so tired of reaching, for a love that's never there

Repeat Chorus

 

Don't Put Her Down, You Helped Put Her There

This song was written in the early'70s when times and attitudes were very different from what they are today. Now women front their own bands and make their own decisions; they compete in the marketplace alongside the men. Does that mean we've had a complete turnaround in men's attitudes toward women? I'm afraid not, but there have been some nice changes. Some of the younger male musicians who have come along in the past few years did not all grow up under the Good Old Boy regime. So they tend to be more open and sensitive in their working relationships with women. There are bonds of friendship and trust that never existed before with those from “the old school of thought.” And I should know, being one of the first women in bluegrass, that kind of mind-set was predominant. There were few choices open to women in those days and working conditions left a lot to be desired, when and if you did work. If I was working, I was generally the only female in the band. So I got hit on all the time, and they got mad when I turned them down. That made working conditions even more tense. One guy started hitting on me right on the bandstand in the middle of a song, with his wife sitting in front of the stage! On another occasion I'd just been hired to play bass behind this band who had all worked with well-known people and they considered themselves professionals. My first night on the job every single member of the band made a trip over to my table when I was on a break to hit on me. They all accepted “No” and went on, except one. He kept trying night after night. He finally got so angry I thought he might strike me. And he yelled at me, what is wrong with you? It never once entered his “good old boy” brain that the problem was
him
and not me. I only mention these incidents (which only scratch the surface) to give some insight into the mind-set of those people and what the early days were like for women who loved the music.

When they weren't flirting with me, they would talk about the women they ran around with like they were dogs. They were mostly country boys
who had moved to the city to find work, but they still had the same old attitudes they had grown up with. Women, to them, tended to be either wives or whores. One of my sisters had the bad luck of falling for the sweet talk of a guy like that who married her, kept her pregnant, and treated her like dirt. I wrote this song for my sister and the many women like her up and down the road of life who deserved a whole lot better than what they got!

You pull the string she's your plaything

You can make her or break her it's true

You abuse her, accuse her, turn around and use her

Then forsake her anytime it suits you

Chorus:

Well there's more to her than powder and paint

Than her peroxided bleached-out hair

If she acts that way it's 'cause you've had your day

Don't put her down, you helped put here there

She hangs around playing the clown

While her soul is aching inside

She's heartbreaks child—she just lives for your smile

To build her up in a world made by men

At the house down the way, you sneak in—you pay

For her love her body all her shame

Then you call yourself a man, you say you just don't understand

How a woman could turn out that way

Repeat Chorus

 

It's Hard to Tell the Singer from the Song

When I wrote this song, in 1986, I was probably writing my autobiography and didn't know it. I
thought
I was just writing about this person who experiences a lot in life, but loses some of herself along the way. A little piece of her is left behind in every relationship, job, or experience that she encountered, and can't be retrieved. I imagine the reason that we all leave bits and pieces of ourselves scattered down the road of life is that we live and learn by experiences. So if we grow (and some of us do), we won't be the same person when we leave a relationship or experience. Some of our old self is left behind. Sometimes it's hard to tell how much we take away and how much we leave behind. I always hope I leave more good than bad.

She's lost a lot of herself that time cannot replace

Bits and pieces of herself gone, without a trace

She's been a-holding on to anything that happened to be there

All used up and forgotten and scattered everywhere

Chorus:

Oh she is not an angel, so don't look for her wings

She's a hurtin' woman who lives the songs she sings

She learned them all the hard way on the streets of life alone

That is why it's hard to tell the singer from the song

One by one her young years were gone before she knew

Wasted on some loser who was only walking through

Each time her bruised and lonely heart tried to break the fall

And gather up the pieces of a life that paid it all!

Repeat Chorus

 

I Love to Sing the Old Songs

I wrote this song in 2001 after reading an article written in a Primitive Baptist newsletter—they call them “minutes.” My father gave it to me back in the 1960s. I read the piece he had written, as he asked me to do, but didn't read the one that inspired this song until years later. It was written by an elderly lady named Julia Hollis who lived in Oklahoma. She said she had been singing since she was three years old. She dearly loved singing and listening to the other members of her church sing, and the old songs had been a blessing and comfort to her down through the years. What the minister got out of prayer, she seemed to get out of the singing and the old songs. She said that she would never forget the old singers and their songs. The more I read, the more I realized how much we had in common when it came to our love and passion for the old songs, even though we were years and miles apart in age and distance. We were kindred spirits. When I finished reading her article, I wrote a note to myself that included a few of her words to remind me to write a song about how the old songs had enhanced and enriched our lives down through the years. In joy and in sorrow they had stood by us, seeing us through it all.

Oh I love to get my old book out, and sing the old songs again

Like a dear old friend they comfort me

Through my joy and through my pain

Yes I love to sing the dear old songs I sang down through the years

Like hark don't you hear the turtle dove

I sang when I was but three

Chorus:

The bower of prayer my native home

I sang when I was quite young

The dear old songs the good old songs

Have stood by me for so long!

Now my passing years have not been kind

My dimming eyes have slipped away from me

Oh but when I take that old book out

I can see as plain as day

And across the green fields and mountainside

Down the old back roads of home

I meet my loved ones there oh the joy we share

When I sing those dear old songs

Repeat Chorus

 

Old Calloused Hands