The Hummingbird

THE HUMMINGBIRD

A farmboy from Kentucky Hills

Learned to play guitar for his backpoarch thrills

Lean a ladderback chair on a windowsill

And look out at the stars

He must have got it up in Michigan

He and his brothers were pickin then

When he moved to Gary he took it with him

That Gibson Hummingbird guitar

Oh how that guitar would ring

Dad would close his eyes and sing

Silver Haired Daddy would always bring a tear to his eyes

I was all of five years old

My brother Don and a kid down the road

We just did what we was told to get outside and play

Someone wrapped it in a coat

And we took it to the swamp just to see if it'd float

But a Hummingbird is not a boat

And it sank straight away

When he got home that's when he heard

What we'd done to that Hummingbird

And he looked at me and never said a word

Just went out back to see

And there it was in all it's mess

With the cattails and the redwing nests

And there he laid it down to rest for all eternity

One of these days you know what I'll do

Get a Hummingbird guitar and a brother or two

Underneath a Kentucky moon, give him back his childhood dream

It won't make up for thirty-two years

And it won't dry up a swamp of tears

But it's better than a case of beer and a fifth of Jim Beam