out of college
The first one in her family to go
And Californi a seemed
like heaven,
Pulaski, Tennessee was her home
She worked on losing her
southern accent
And turned her back on her Baptist ways
She bought some clothes that barely
covered her fair skinned body,
Went to Nashville and caught
a plane
The clouds rushed beneath her
as the LA smog filled the air
She smiled when the airlock opened
And the Pacific breeze blew through her
hair
She thought about the boys
from Alabama
Who came into town every
Friday night
And drank beer out of big
glass quart bottles
And left their trail of blood
and tears behind
She thought the men from California
would be different
She'd grown up watching
them on her TV
But the men she came to know
in California
Left her longing for Pulaski, Tennessee
Good
ideas always start with a full glass
And just breathing here can make
a girl's nose bleed
Dreams here live and die just like a stray dog
on a dirt road somewhere in Tennessee
The storefronts all filled
up with eyeballs
As the policemen clear out the street
For a line of cars with their
headlights burning
Driving slow through Pulaski,
Tennessee