Forums » Gillian Welch and David Rawlings "Lyrics"

• MattWales

  

  • 29 posts
   

  July 14, 2011 5:57 PM PDT

  

  Released June 3, 2003

  Track Listing:

  1. Look At Miss Ohio

  2. Make Me Down A Pallet On Your Floor

  3. Wayside/Back In Time

  4. I Had A Real Good Mother and Father

  5. One Monkey

  6. No One Knows My Name

  7. Lowlands

  8. One Little Song

  9. I Made A Lovers Prayer

  10. Wrecking Ball

• emmapm

  

  • 2 posts
   

  July 31, 2014 11:14 PM PDT

  Does anyone want to help me figure out the Wrecking Ball lyrics? I've listened to it a million times, and I recently realized that Gillian slurs so much in a couple places that I didn't actually have any idea what I'm singing along to. It's driving me crazy!

   

  Relatedly, does anyone know why she never sings the "morning mist" verse live? 

   

   

   

  Look out boys, 'cause I'm a rollin' stone
  That's what I was when I first left home
  I took every secret that I'd ever known
  And headed for the wall
  Like a wrecking ball
  
  Started down on the road of sin
  Playin' bass under a pseudonym
  The days were rough and it's all quite dim
  But my mind cuts through it all
  Like a wrecking ball
  
  Oh, just a little deadhead
  Who is watching, who is watching?
  I was just a little deadhead
  Fallen??? daughter on a scholarship
  Well, I got tired and let my average slip
  Then I was a farmer in the pogonip
  Where the weed that I recall
  Was like a wrecking ball
  
  I met a lovesick daughter in the San Joaquin
  She showed me colors I'd never seen
  And drank the bottom out of my canteen
  Then left me in the fall/to fall??
  Like a wrecking ball
  
  Standin' there, in the morning mist
  A tug of??? Coke at the end of my wrist
  Yes, I remember when first we kissed
  Though it was nothing at all
  Like a wrecking ball
  
  I was a little deadhead
  Who's watching, who's watching?
  I was just a little deadhead
  With too much trouble for me to shake
  Oh, the weather and the blindin' ache
  Was ridin' high until the '89 quake
  Hit the Santa Cruz garden mall
  Like a wrecking ball

• JasonK

  

  • Moderator
  • 135 posts
   

  August 4, 2014 1:23 AM PDT

  Fallen sounds right as does in the fall. The coke line I always thought was jack and coke, but doesn't sound like it. She hardly evr sings that verse 'live' now. Spot on with the rest of the lyrics tho.

• shinyapple

  

  • 3 posts
   

  February 28, 2016 4:13 AM PST

  I always thought it was 'darling daughter'. I agree with 'in the fall', and I'm equally as confused by what it is that goes with the coke! I thought I'd finally get the answer two weeks ago when they spontaneously added Wrecking Ball to the setlist and I was standing in the front row, but yes, as I discovered, apparently they don't do that verse live. If I had to guess I'd say it's something to do with what the rowdier members of the crowd might shout out at the line 'yes I remember when first we kissed', given how much effort they go to to not discuss their relationship.