Leo & Leona

[Kush]

A love song from Texas by Butch Hancock sung by Joe Ely (live).

Leo & Leona
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FqwQ82Dh5U

A little man named Leo headed for Laredo
He left Saltillo on the Day of the Dead
Falling down the hillside, rolling down the roadside
Right by his side rode a lady in red.

He left two pigs named Slander and Libel
She left a pet burro and a snow white dove
He faced the music with a bullet and a Bible
And the testimony of a man in love

He hated church bells and the high-rise hotels
The portfolios of the businessmen
He had a mouthful of bad teeth and his smile was crazy
Childhood polio had settled in his hands

You can change your tune you can change direction
You can change your mind you can change your heart
You can change your feelings and your affections
But the circle of love is a work of art.

They took the back roads up to Terlingua
Spent a stormy night in four adobe walls
He placed a ring there on her finger
Said “I’ll marry you someday when the spirit calls”

She lost that gold ring the next summer at a Juarez bullfight
Screaming Ole! Ole! on the sunny side
But she hid her eyes when the mules dragged the bull away
And Leo held Leona when she cried.

They drove all night down a Texas highway
Saw the sun come up on El Capitan
Leo leaned over and with her ring finger
Drew a perfect circle there in the desert sand.

They kissed each other down in Carlsbad Caverns
When they stopped the tour and turned out the light
You could have heard a pin drop
You could have heard the wind stop
You could have heard her whisper
“Leo, I see the light”

You can change your tune you can change direction
You can change your mind you can change your heart
You can change your feelings and your affections
But the circle of love is a work of art.

Back in Juarez out by the bullring
A little beggar boy sat sifting through the sand
He found a peso and 10cent tacos
Good God! He found Leona’s golden band

[Kush]

Joe Ely is sometimes referred to as Texas answer to Bruce Springsteen...they even look alike a little.

Here he is with his own song "The Highway is my home"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByNL2KjGgAo

and with the Boss and Alejandro Escovedo in Austin last year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmLPWWvrT6I

[Diane]

Ah Kush, some favourite things in the first thing I clicked on today - Springsteen, and songs about highways. Those two lanes will take us anywhere.

I have been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
Never found a home
- Rod Mckuen

"The highway is my home" is the perfect answer!

Tonight we fly, we're headin' west
Toward the mountains and the ocean where the eagle makes his nest
If our bones bleach on the desert, we'll consider we are blessed
Tonight we ride, tonight we ride
- Russell

(Think we need a thread for best highway lyrics...)

[Kush]

Those two lanes will take us anywhere.

or as John Hiatt informs us in The Open Road ....no tellin' where that son 'a bitch goes


Glad you enjoyed it Diane. I am a big city guy - the bright lights and nightlife energize me - but the highways and open roads are like the refuge that I need to recharge myself from time to time.

[Steven]

Hi Kush and Diane,

Good links and convergences in this thread. Here's a link to Johnny Cash covering "Love's Been Good To Me":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g2QltnylZA. Experience on life's road was expressed with nobility and
authenticity in the Johnny Cash recording... a gift to those still on the road as he was nearing the end of his
earthly journey.

(Been having data and time constraints and have been limited in being able to view the links in this section.
Not for lack of interest.)

[scocoh]

.
.
Love it. Joe also plays with Butch and Jimmie Dale Gilmore as The Flatlanders. Here's them doing Julia:

http://www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=30782560&ac=now

[Diane]

Steven I thought of you when I posted those Johnny Cash lyrics. Great to see you!

Cool song, scocoh. I still remember Kush posting some remarkable Flatlanders lyrics a few years ago - Thank God for the Road.

Here's Bruce with Jon Bon Jovi - It's My Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxd-LLPOEWI
a fab one to sing in the car - my heart is like an open highway:-)

---

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long...
There's no load I can't hold
Road so rough this I know
I'll be there when the light comes in
Tell 'em we're survivors
- Eddy Cochran

[Kush]

Hi all,

enjoyed all the links. Steven - the Johnny Cash song reminded me of Joan Baez song 'Love song to a Stranger Part 2'. Could not find her original version of it although there is a very nice cover version. It also led me to Ms. Baez Love song to a stranger and reminded me what a great songwriter she was herself but that aspect is overshadowed due to her association with His Bobness.

Love song to a Stranger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg9Q9co8W2g

Here is a favorite Butch Hancock song of mine Two Roads (bad audio). I posted this back in 2005 so time to recycle old posts and maybe we can save the world
I have to say I like it better when Joe Ely or Jimmie Dale sings Butch Hancock songs. This is a blast from the past, Austin in 1982.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYnH74XoJF0

I give my heart for your attention
I give my soul to the Lord above
I got thoughts that I just can't mention
But if you listen close you're gonna hear enough.

This old world spins like a minor miracle
The sun and the moon go round just for you
But deep inside there's a finer circle
My friend that's the wheel that must run true.

You can drive all day and never leave Texas
You can drive all night and never leave home
Everything's real but not everything mixes
There's somethings even love leaves alone.

There's a fork in the road where I seek my fortune
One road to life...one road to ruin
I flipped my coin and I started marchin'
High on a mountain between the roads....a storm was brewin'.

Right beside the road sat an old gray Indian
Her twin sister sittin' on the other side
I asked 'em both for their opinion
Which road was road that led to life?

Now one tells the truth....one always lies
One sounds like an angel....one sounds like a witch
When they spoke....they spoke together
Till this poor boy couldn't tell which one was which.

Well I got my soul set on a firm foundation
But I could barely tell....tell right from left
Now what's gonna be my true destination
A life of charity or a life of theft?

I give one woman the shoes my feet were fillin'
I give the other money from my gunny sack
I gave one road my belt and my sombrero
I gave the other te shirt right off my back.

Then I ran through briars and I ran through brambles
Neither time nor pain was I countin'
Up rocky ridges through rubble I rambled
Forsakin' two roads to climb one mountain.

At the top of the world the sky was clearin'
You could see forever far and wide
I saw two roads that split apart behind me
But man they came together again on the other side.

You can drive all day and never leave Texas
You can drive all night and never leave home
Everything's real but not everything mixes
There's somethings even love leaves alone.

[Diane]

Those country singers of yours can be better poets than the poets!

-----------

Song of the Open Road,
Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

Etc...

[Kush]

No poets in Texas Diane. only "storytellers and bullsh*tters" as Guy Clark calls it.

Mr. Whitman has the right idea.

A train song from Thomas G. Russell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbt1a7dR9pE

Look where we have ended up on the edge of the Great Southwest
Starin’ at those restless trees along the water ditch
And up the street the Rio Grande like Egypt’s old Blue Nile
With the memory of the Early Ones who rested here a while
But now the freight trains, long haul trucks, they’re passin’ through
They don’t have the urge to wink at the likes of me and you
It’s all just diesel smoke, iron rail and a running string of lights
The music of the Santa Fe at midnight.