Slow Turning

John Hiatt

Slow Turning

Drive South
Trudy and Dave
Tennessee Plates
Icy Blue Heart
Sometime Other Than Now
Georgia Rae
Ride Along
Slow Turning
It'll Come To You
Is Anybody There?
Paper Thin
Feels Like Rain

Drive South

I didn't say we wouldn't hurt anymore

That's how you learn, you just get burned

But we don't have to feel like dirt anymore

Though love's not earned, Baby it's our turn

We were always looking for true north

With our heads in the clouds, just a little off course

I left the motor running, now if you're feeling down and out

CHORUS:

Come on Baby drive south, with the one you love

I'm not talkin' 'bout retreatin' little girl

Gonna take our stand, in this Chevy van

Windows open on the rest of the world

Holdin' hands, all the way to Dixieland

We've been tryin' to turn our lives around

Since we were little kids, it's been wearin' us down

Don't turn away now Darlin' lets fire it up and wind it out

REPEAT CHORUS

BRIDGE:

I heard your mama callin', I think she was just stallin'

Don't know who she was talkin' to, baby me and you

We could go down with a smile on, don't bother to pack your nylons

Just keep them pretty legs showin', it gets hot down where we're goin'

We were always looking for true north

With our heads in the clouds, just a little off course

I left the motor running, now if you're feeling down and out

Come on baby drive, come on baby drive south, come on baby drive south

REPEAT CHORUS

Trudy and Dave

Whatever you don't follow that shot, she rang those words out with all

she got

With a baby and the laundry in the Chevrolet, Well he thought about

following anyway

But he drove 'em to the strip mall laundromat,

In his three day beard and his red man hat

Trudy washed their bell bottom jeans, while that baby just sat there

lookin' mean

CHORUS:

Trudy and Dave

They're out of their minds

Trudy and Dave

They're out of their minds

Well David put a match to a Lucky Strike

And the smoke curled up 'round his head how he liked,

It made him feel a little mysterious

'Til Trudy said "David honey, what about us?"

So he thought about them and those shots ringing out

And other things he shouldn't be thinking about

Like how it wasn't them at all, just life that was mean

And how a twenty dollar pistol made him feel so clean

REPEAT CHORUS

Didn't mean to do it baby, but I did it for love

The same shot his Daddy heard before him

A shot that can really blow you away

And when it is fired his mama told him

"David, you'll follow it to your grave"

Well Trudy and Dave, those crazy kids

Had a baby of their own and you heard what they did

In the middle of a strip mall shots rang out

Shots heard all over the world no doubt

'Cause it was there in the paper the very next day

'Bout a couple and a baby and a Chevrolet

Who shot up an automatic teller machine

Took the money for the laundry and drove away clean

REPEAT CHORUS

Tennessee Plates

I woke up in a hotel and I didn't know what to do

I turned the TV on and wrote a letter to you

The news was talkin' 'bout a dragnet up on the interstate

Said they were lookin' for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates

Since I left California baby, things have gotten worse

Seems the land of opportunity for me is just a curse

Tell that judge in Bakersfield that my trial will have to wait

Down here they're lookin' for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates

It was somewhere in Nevada, it was cold outside

She was shiverin' in the dark, so I offered her a ride

Three bank jobs later, four cars hot wired

We crossed the Mississippi like an oil slick fire

If they'd known what we was up to they wouldn't 'a let us in

When we landed in Memphis like original sin

Up Elvis Presley Boulevard to the Graceland gates

See we were lookin' for a Cadillac with Tennessee plates

Well, there must have been a dozen of them parked in that garage

And there wasn't one Lincoln and there wasn't one Dodge

And there wasn't one Japanese model or make

Just pretty, pretty Cadillacs with Tennessee plates

She saw him singing once when she was seventeen

And ever since that day she's been living in between

I was never king of nothin' but this wild weekend

Anyway he wouldn't care, hell he gave them to his friends

Well this ain't no hotel I'm writin' you from

It's the Tennessee prison up at Brushy Mountain

Where yours sincerely's doin' five to eight

Stampin' out my time makin' Tennessee plates

Icy Blue Heart

She came onto him like a slow movin' cold front

His beer was warmer than the look in her eyes

She sat on a stool, he said, "What do you want?"

She said, "Give me a love that don't freeze up inside."

He said, "I have melted some hearts in my time dear

But to sit next to you, Lord, I shiver and shake

And if I knew love, well, I don't think I'd be here

Askin' myself if I've got what it takes."

CHORUS:

To melt your icy blue heart

Should I start?

To turn what's been frozen for years

Into a river of tears

"These days we all play cool, calm and collected

Why, our lips could turn blue just shooting the breeze"

But under the frost, well, he thought he detected

A warm blush of red and a touch of her knee

He said, "Girl, you're a beauty like I've never witnessed

And I've seen the Northern Lights dance in the air

But I've felt the cold that can follow the first kiss

And there's not enough heat in the fires burning there."

REPEAT CHORUS

Sometime Other Than Now

Maybe your mama didn't treat you right,

Maybe her intentions weren't even very good

Maybe my daddy lay awake at night

Imagining himself in some other neighborhood

Left to our own devices

Like maybe they were too

Out on the open road

And wonderin' what to do

CHORUS:

You ask how we got here baby don't ask how

That was sometime other than now

It takes what it takes, that's what they told us girl

We've done a lot of dumb things, we'll probably do some more

On two different paths, runnin' 'round in different worlds

We finally found each other, who we were lookin' for

Now I see my own reflection

When I give my love to you

And it's shot back like an arrow

So straight and true

REPEAT CHORUS

BRIDGE:

I'm not leavin' baby

The future's comin' right here and now

And maybe tomorrow we can't take it

I'm not grievin' baby anymore

The past is gone

And we can't fake it, so baby let's make it

With this love of ours somehow

A little bit of fear, you know it goes a long way

It's followed us around since we were little kids

With just a little faith, well maybe baby someday

We will find the strength, the strength to forgive

It don't come all of a sudden

But when it comes at last

You could blink your eyes and miss it

It happens so fast

REPEAT CHORUS

Georgia Rae

I know a girl, mess with your mind,

She'll come to you in the summer sometime

She'll talk about things you don't understand,

But you better keep to the matters at hand

Before the whole damn thing unwinds

She is beautiful, she is small

She don't wanna play basketball

There's no tellin' what she might do

Before her doin' days are through

But right now she can't even crawl

CHORUS:

Georgia Rae, OK, Georgia Rae

Georgia Rae, what'd I say Georgia Rae

Your mother and I we did this act

In some hotel 'bout nine moths back

Now, it's love that brings you here

A love that will not disappear

Georgia, honey, you can count on that

REPEAT CHORUS

BRIDGE:

We were tired, should've been sleepin'

But, like a fire, somethin' came creepin', creepin', creepin'

Your brother and sister don't understand

How your tiny feet and your tiny hands

Could carry the weight of a thousand earths

Into our little universe

But, Georgia, we all think it's grand

REPEAT CHORUS

Ride Along

You get up in the morning

You get on the bus

You don't think about nothing

You don't raise no fuss

You come home in the evening

Turn the TV on

You ain't going nowhere

You just ride along, ride along, ride along

You get the Sunday paper

On Saturday night

You read the travel section

Until you're all uptight

'Cause it's almost Monday

Jack you know that song

You ain't going nowhere

You just ride along, ride along, ride along

They talk about you in the press

They got you figured out I guess

Though you never heard of the guy they mention

Sometimes that girl she'll slip you a kiss

But she's just another somnambulist

And you're tired of sleepwalking

The cats out but he ain't talking

You're just another joker

With one chance in hell

Of ever pullin' that trigger

Of ever feelin' too well

Yeah but you just might do it

Just to prove them all wrong

'Cause you ain't going nowhere

You just ride along, ride along, ride along

Git along git along git along

You just ride along, ride along, ride along

You just...

Slow Turning

When I was a boy,

I thought it just came to ya'

But I never could tell what's mine

So it didn't matter anyway

My only pride and joy

Was this racket down here

Bangin' on an old guitar

And singin' what I had to say

I always thought our house was haunted

But nobody said boo to me

I never did get what I wanted

Now I get what I need

CHORUS:

It's been a slow turnin'

From the inside out

A slow turnin'

But you come about

Slow learnin'

But you learn to sway

A slow turnin' baby

Not fade away

Now I'm in my car

I got the radio on

I'm yellin' at the kids in the back seat

'Cause they're bangin' like Charlie Watts

You think you've come so far

In this one horse town

Then she's laughin' that crazy laugh

'Cause you haven't left the parkin' lot

Time is short and here's the damn thing about it

You're gonna die, gonna die for sure

And you can learn to life with love or without it

But there ain't no cure

There's just a...

REPEAT CHORUS

It'll Come to You

That girl you were seein' back in '72

Somethin' 'bout a hotel room and bath water in your shoes

Were you into your Catholic thing then or some other stew

Were you both holed up in that hotel room practicing voodoo

CHORUS:

It'll come to you

Don't look back, it'll come to you

In the middle of the night, with you covers pulled up tight

It'll come to you

And that business partner you took for every red cent

You can't even remember where all of that money went

Some on liquor and women, maybe a little rent

But as far as paying it back, Buddy, you ain't made a dent

REPEAT CHORUS

Yes they'll all be standin' 'round you in your sleep

Askin' for a promise you couldn't keep

'Cause back when you were hollow inside

You were tryin' to puff yourself up with your own foolish pride

Now you're happily married with a wife and kids of you're own

But sometimes in the closet at night you can hear them rattlin' bones

Takin' bets on your future and your current postal zone

It's a spooky equation, but check out yourself, Jack, you're the great

unknown

REPEAT CHORUS

Is Anyone There?

Well I'm out here on my own

Followin' a star

Asking on my knees, for some direction, please,

And, God, you know that's hard

Cause I'm such a stubborn man

Lord, I'm stubborn as a mule

Even though I struggle some, I believe a change will come

And I hear you love a fool

I see a road and a flash of lightning

Let me tell you it's frightening

CHORUS:

Is anybody there?

Oh, I need somebody tonight

To care

I'm feeling alone and it just don't seem right

Is anybody there?

Oh, I need somebody to be

To know that I'm good enough for love

To walk beside me

And as a woman in this world

Well you must have felt like this

That a man might come along

With another hard luck song

And betray you with a kiss

But would you reconsider me

Though I know I've caused you pain

I've taken vows with you

I believe them to be true

Now can we take a little rain?

We could hit that road in a flash of lightning

Maybe it won't be so frightening

REPEAT CHORUS TWICE

I'm gonna keep on walking, baby

Paper Thin

I was gonna get up off that bar stool

Just as soon as I could figure it out

Why I was overlooked at the car pool

Stood up at the dance with no twist and shout

When you're burnin' with your last desire

And every memory haunts you

You write it down in alcohol fire

'Cause that's the only flame that wants you

CHORUS:

When you're paper thin

Yeah, read all about it

When you were out of luck, well, luck was doin' alright

Now you're paper thin

Yeah, they can see right through ya

You just cut you're little finger on the edge of the night

Now do I really have to be responsible

For what I did between those tavern walls

I was just mixing up some chemicals

You could've heard a pin drop, could have heard time crawl

And every once in a while

You could hear you're own heart pound

Maybe some paper doll with a pasted on smile

Would let you write her number down

REPEAT CHORUS

Feels Like Rain

Down here the river meets the sea

And in the sticky heat I feel ya' open up to me

Love comes out of nowhere baby, like a hurricane

And it feels like rain

Underneath the stars lying next to you

Wondering who you are baby

How do you do?

When the clouds blow in across the moon

And the wind howls out your name

Feels like rain

We'll never make that bridge tonight

Across lake Ponchartrain

Feel like rain

Batten down the hatches

But keep your heart out on your sleeve

A little bit of stormy weather, that's no cause for us to leave

Just stay here baby, in my arms

Let it wash away the pain

Feels like rain