Tonight's Music

This is Steve Earl singing his hit Copperhead Road at the Cambridge Folk Festival. This is rock influenced folk rather than Celtic. But it is 100% Hillbilly.

My family is all from the mountains of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee and I have relatives, none still living, who buried lawmen (and some rival moonshiners) whose bodies haven't been discovered to this day.

BTY I was in Johnson County this very day and if all the bodies of people who got themselves kilt by sticking their noses places they weren't wanted and didn't belong were to get up and walk the streets it would look like Night of the Living Dead.

This song can be found on Steve Earl's CD Copperhead Road.

Here are the lyrics:

Well my name's John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
You hardly ever saw Grandaddy down here
He only came to town about twice a year
He'd buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine
Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad
He headed up the holler with everything he had
It's before my time but I've been told
He never came back from Copperhead Road

Now Daddy ran the whiskey in a big block Dodge
Bought it at an auction at the Mason's Lodge
Johnson County Sheriff painted on the side
Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside
Well him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin' sound
Well the sheriff came around in the middle of the night
Heard mama cryin', knew something wasn't right
He was headed down to Knoxville with the weekly load
You could smell the whiskey burnin' down Copperhead Road

I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash first,'round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
And I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico
I plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road
Well the D.E.A.'s got a chopper in the air
I wake up screaming like I'm back over there
I learned a thing or two from ol' Charlie don't you know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road

Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road