I was listening to an interview with Rodney Crowell the other night. He was saying something about a book he was part of, where different songwriters revisited some of their songs as prose rather than song lyrics. I liked the idea, so I thought I'd try a few as short stories. Where possible, I've added links to the actual song.
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Years ago, a music publisher friend told me that my song "Diamonds & Cadillacs" would be what I'm remembered for. Quite a compliment coming from him, especially seeing how it was of zero financial benefit to him. I had to agree, in certain circles it's my best known and best loved song. Lots of the old rockabilly guys loved it. Sleepy La Beef, Alan Leatherwood, Charlie Feathers (who I originally had in mind to sing it), Mack Self (who declared it to be REAL ROCKABILLY!), and Hayden Thompson (who recorded a version for Blue Light Records) all loved it.
It's one of those songs that just happened. I was waiting for the bass player to pick me for a gig in Ohio. I was just sitting in my garage, picking at an old unfinished song of mine from the 80s (still unfinished!). I changed the opening riff a bit, and BAM! The song started to hit. I kept it simple. By the time the bass player arrived, I had close to 20 verses! On the drive to Cleveland, I whittled it way down and came up with the middle section. The solo was almost an afterthought. Al Leatherwood came to see us perform that night. He asked if we'd want to record some 'demos' the next day (which became our 1st album). At the studio, I played D&C for him, and he went nuts for it. He said he wanted to record it. I told him that was great but I'd like to record it first, and that I was also thinking about shopping it to Charlie Feathers. Al got pissed about that, which I've never understood why. It's a rockabilly song. It's never going to be a hit. It's probably too good to be a "hit". It's not lowest common denominator enough.
Note: There are men who carry their glory years like a medal, polished and pinned to their chest. And there are men who carry them like a stone in their pocket — worn smooth, never shown, but never left behind.
Diamonds & Cadillacs is the story of the latter. A man who once lived under the hot burn of stage lights, who wore sharkskin and alligator skin and the kind of smile that comes from knowing you’ve made it — for a while. The crowds cheered, the women leaned in close, the money came and went, and the Cadillacs went faster.
Now, years later, what’s left is a porch, an old guitar, and the echo of nights when the air was electric and his name meant something. It’s a reminder that every bright light casts a shadow, and every song — no matter how loud — has a last note.
Diamonds & Cadillacs
The porch faced west, which meant the light hit him in the eyes around supper. He didn’t mind. Sun in the eyes was nothing compared to what he’d seen fade over the years.
The old guitar lay across his knees, its finish scratched and dulled, the frets worn smooth. He ran his thumb along the neck, more habit than music now. Every once in a while, he’d pluck a note and let it hang there until it died in the warm air.
Evenings were for remembering.
He thought about the nights under the stage lights — sweat running into his eyes, the crowd moving like a single restless thing, the first sharp ring of the strings when the band kicked into gear. Back then, there were diamond rings on his fingers, Cadillac cars waiting outside, and cash folded thick in his pocket. Pretty women who laughed too loud, whose perfume clung to his shirt. Back then, people leaned close just to hear him talk. They called him The Guitar Man.
It had been good while it lasted. But it hadn’t lasted. It never does.
When the gigs thinned out and the phone stopped ringing, he kept moving — bar to bar, town to town — until the money was gone. He worked two jobs after that. One was hauling crates down at the depot. The other was pumping gas at the station on Route 9. His wife didn’t care much for the music, never had. She wanted him home for supper, not chasing the echo of applause. She’d never known him when he was somebody.
Some nights, he’d sit on the porch after she went to bed, a cigarette in one hand, the guitar in the other, wondering if she’d have loved him more if she’d known him then.
There was one night that stayed sharp in his mind. Summer of ’62. The big outdoor show in Tulsa. Ten thousand people out there, faces shining in the floodlights. The air was thick with heat and smoke and something electric. He’d stepped out in his sharkskin suit, alligator slippers, a ring on every other finger, and the place roared like it knew him. Halfway through the set, the sky cracked open with lightning, and he kept playing anyway — hair plastered to his forehead, strings slick under his fingers. By the time the last chord faded, he knew he’d never feel anything like it again.
Now he sat on a porch that sagged in the middle, in a town that didn’t know his name. The Cadillac was long gone. So were the rings. The gold guitar was all that was left, and even that was fading.
On a Wednesday morning in October, under a thin sun, they put him in the ground. Ten o’clock sharp. A few neighbors came, mostly out of habit. The preacher spoke kindly, but he didn’t know. He never knew that the man in the box had once been The Guitar Man.
There were no diamonds rings. No Cadillacs. Just a patch of fresh earth, and the sound of the wind moving through the dry grass.
Somewhere, maybe far away, maybe just at the edge of hearing, his last note still hung in the air, waiting to be caught by someone who’d understand.
"EDGE OF TOWN"
“Edge of Town” is a song I wrote back around 1987. I played it with The Swingin' Cadillacs, and later The Rowdy Bovines and the Legendary Tremblers. I know we recorded it at one point, but I wasn't happy with the outcome, so it got shelved. I have a copy around here somewhere - but damned if I know where.
The L&B Café sat by the two-lane blacktop, a half-mile past the last stoplight and just shy of the grain silos. The coffee was strong, the pie was better, and the neon sign out front buzzed like a tired cicada.
She worked the late shift, hair pulled back, apron strings tied tight. By ten o’clock, she knew he’d be there. He always was.
Tonight, she caught sight of him through the glass before the door swung open. He walked in with that quiet, easy confidence, scanning the room until his eyes found hers. The smile that passed between them wasn’t just a greeting — it was a promise.
Some nights they’d head out for a drink at Dixie’s Bar, where the beer was cheap and cold and the pool table leaned just enough to make every game a gamble. The crowd was a mix of good ol' boys, surprisingly literate bikers, and the kids who hadn't quite figured out their direction yet.
Other nights, they’d drive to her mother’s place, where the TV played low in the dark and the old woman waited up with coffee and a knowing look. Her father worked nights at the factory and had been gone for a week straight. She did her best to hide the bruises. She'd say things like, "Oh that? It's nothing. I bumped into the counter." Her mother never said it, but they both knew she got lonely. Lonely enough to not worry about a few black and blue marks.
He’d grown up with more money than most kids in town, but it hadn’t made him soft. He'd dropped out of college twice by now. He worked construction all week, hands rough, boots worn, saving for something bigger. She was part of that “something.” Six months from now, they’d be married. They talked about it like other people talked about the weather — a certainty, steady and unshakable.
Back at the café, she poured his coffee and leaned on the counter. He told her about his day, she told him about hers. The hours slipped by like they always did.
It was just another night on the edge of town.
But to them, it was everything.
"Til Dust" is a song I wrote for a friend in Australia. For years, we were the first person the other would speak to every day. We've long been about as close as two people can be without being an old married couple. When I opted to try rewriting it as a short, I decided to give it a little bit of mystery. See what you think.
The last thing she said was “’til dust.”
Not a farewell, not even a promise — just two small words, breathed into the warm night air as if they already knew their place in the stars. Two words, soft as a moth’s wing, and then she turned out the light.
I lay there staring at the shadows, the ghosts of dreams crowding in before I’d even fallen asleep. On the nightstand sat the book she’d been reading — spine cracked, corners worn. The page was still marked where she’d left off. Its pages smelled faintly of sun cream and jasmine, just like her. I wanted to ask about the ending, to know what she thought would happen to the lovers on the page — but the wine was cheap, and my tongue was heavy.
“’Til dust,” I mumbled back, the syllables slurred but sincere. She smiled without looking at me. I could still smell her hair when I shut my eyes.
Outside, the crickets sang in the eucalyptus trees. The tide lapped lazily against the pier. Somewhere in the distance, a kookaburra’s cackle broke the silence, reminding me I was far from home. I’d come halfway around the world for her — through airports and customs lines, over oceans that swallowed days whole — just to stand here under the Southern Cross with her hand in mine.
“’Til dust,” I murmured back - again, clumsy with the words but meaning every one. She smiled, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and I could feel that smile settling into my bones.
Night rolled into day and back into night. We walked through the balmy dark, past the glow of the harbor lights, until the city thinned into quiet streets. She brushed my arm, and the night seemed to hum. In the air was salt and frangipani, and the promise of rain. She turned to me once more, eyes catching the starlight, and whispered it again — “’til dust.”
The streetlamp flickered.
She was gone.
Now I wait, replaying her voice like a treasured song. Maybe one day she’ll return with the tide, walking back into my life as easily as she walked out.
'Til dust.
"HOODOO RIDDIM"...what a weird song with an equally weird history. In 2022, I did my last gig with my band The Legendary Tremblers. The band had become increasingly difficult to keep running. The pandemic killed off most gigs. Then I had 2 strokes. It was all more of a struggle than I cared to deal with. We were asked to perform at a private gig. I agreed, then the drummer bailed. I had maybe a week to scramble to find a drummer. As is often the case, one of the many former drummers for The Rowdy Bovines, Jim Bleyer, came to the rescue. We did the show. And called it a day.
A day or so later, Jim contacted me about an idea for a new band. Something between rockabilly, punk rock, and swamp blues. I was intrigued, so I wrote this song. The band never came to fruition though. 2 years later, I was working with an ill-fated new project and we recorded it. It's been getting airplay in a few different markets. A DJ in Cleveland declared it his new favorite song. But will it work as a short? Let's see!
There’s a spot out past the edge of town where the road gives up and the swamp takes over. No signs, no streetlamps, no reason to be there unless you already know. When the sun drops and the night gets thick, the drums start. Slow at first, like a heartbeat, then faster, hotter, until they’re rattling your teeth.
You can’t find it on the big highway. You’ve got to wind through the moss-hung backroads, past the shacks with their one yellow light in the window, until the sound draws you in. Those drums pound ‘til the break of day, and by then you’re not the same as when you arrived.
That night I saw Suzi — maybe seventeen, maybe younger if you looked close. Skirt cut too short, dancing in a way that made old men drop their cards and stare. Bogota Slim was there too, flashing a diamond ring the size of a pecan and grinning like he still had something to prove. Truth was, Slim’s reputation had outrun his abilities. Folks said he was looking for a miracle.
The little old woman appeared sometime after midnight, slipping through the crowd without a sound. A feather jutted from her cap, and in her hand she carried something wrapped in burlap. She unrolled it slow, like she was giving you a choice you didn’t want to make. Monkey’s paw — shriveled, ugly, and twitching like it still remembered what it once was.
She spoke low: only drank water that hadn’t been in a pipe. Then she pulled a Boline knife from her belt and, with a single practiced motion, slit the throat of a rooster. The blood hit the dirt and the drums kicked up like they’d been waiting for the cue.
By then, the night had its claws in me.
And the Hoodoo Riddim kept pounding.
Right through to the break of day.
I wrote "ROOSTER" during the pandemic. For the few who don't remember, the world was just weird at the time. Bars and restaurants were closed. Streets were empty. I remember driving down a local highway, trying to find someplace that still sold beer, and things looked very 'ghost town'. I hadn't seen anything this deserted since 9/11.
I was playing a lot of banjo uke at the time, and as they do, riffs and melodies would occasionally settle in. I started to imagine a dystopian Auntie Em's farm from Wizard of Oz. Like I said, it was a weird time and I wasn't getting much social interaction or outside contact. I released the song on the "Til Dust" album. People either love it or hate it. Meh. But as a short...well, it's even weirder.
The bats are gone. They didn’t say goodbye. One night there were fifty of them swirling in the belfry, and then… nothing. The air is wrong without them. Too clean. Too still.
Then the ravens left the tower.
Not just any tower.
Thee Tower.
And you know what that means. They’ve been there for centuries, their black claws holding the monarchy in place. Now the stone stands naked, and the crown is just an empty trinket waiting for the pawn shop.
The sun refuses to rise. The moon won’t glow. And the rats — fat, whispering things — dragged the flour away grain by grain, like they knew it was mine.
The scarecrow forgot who he was. I asked him his name yesterday, and he just stared past me, mouth full of dust. The tinman’s heart rotted from the inside out, rust blooming like a sickness, and he doesn’t move anymore.
A house fell on my baby. You can’t plan for that. It made a sound like wet paper tearing. I keep thinking I’ll see her crawling out from under the boards, but that’s silly, isn’t it?
The cat knows something but she won’t tell me. Just hides and shakes, tail wrapped around herself like a noose.
And my rooster won’t crow no more.
I can’t go into the village. Jesus told me no. He was at the window, lips moving like a puppet’s, and the words slid into my head sideways. He smelled like wet hay and copper.
But the Bible says I can do anything I believe. It’s in there somewhere, next to the part about the locusts.
The clocks have quit. Time is a dead thing nailed to the wall. The trains scream in their sleep but never run. My neighbors are gone — maybe up the hill, maybe in the ground. I hear laughter sometimes, thin and far away, like it’s coming from under the floorboards.
The pills don’t work. The beer & liquor doesn’t work. The quiet works a little too well.
And at the center of all this — the rooster sits on the fence post, eyes glassy, beak closed tight. Like he knows that if he ever crows again, the whole thing will start over.
I rarely write with anyone. For better or worse, if I record it - I wrote it...or at least rewrote it. "Bye Bye" is one of the few that definitely had some outside help.
I spent a couple years working the night shift in what could be called, if we're being honest, a nut house. I was the night manager for a small, 12 bed section. Our clientele were all chronic, long-term schizophrenics. There were about 90 other residents in the building, and most of them were a tad 'whicky in the whacky woo' as well.
My boss had requested that I bring a guitar whenever I could. She felt it might be therapeutic for our some of our clients who didn't sleep traditional hours. I was A-OK with this. Getting paid to play guitar has long been my preferred vocation.
Our folks, clients, whatever you want to call them, they could be like ghosts. I did my rounds every hour, wrote my notes, handled the paperwork side of the job, and played a lot of guitar. One of our folks, Virginia - she was a trip! She was pushing 80 and had been institutionalized most of her life. She wasn't particularly social, at least not in ways most would consider social. If she yelled at you and threatened to get you fired, chances are she liked you. She yelled at me regularly. I'd just smile and act like it was a perfectly normal conversation.
I had just received a beautiful new tricone resonator guitar from a company that offered me an artist endorsement. I'd been playing a lot of acoustic country blues the previous few years, so it was perfect! One night, I was sitting in my office working on a brand new song. Virginia popped her head in, gave me a look of disgust and said, "That's too damned fast. Sounds awful." and walked away. I figured there's a critic in every crowd, but maybe she was right. I do tend to play things too quickly. So I slowed it down. I'd play a bit, try different lyrics, stop, write them down, go back to playing.
Virginia stuck her head in the door again. "Still too damned fast." Damn, she was picky.
Finally, I got the lyrics and the phrasing how I wanted them. I asked Virginia to come to the office and give it a listen, since she clearly had an opinion about it. I played it for and she stopped me halfway through the first verse. "Too. Damned. Fast." She just stared at me like I'd offended her. So I played it again, much much slower. She smiled.
I asked if it sounded better that way. She just give me a grin and walked away. I played it a handful time more, just to get comfortable with the slower version.
A few weeks later, I booked studio time to record the song (and shoot a video). I asked Virginia if she'd like me to give her writing credits for the song. Again, she gave me a look like I'd just insulted her mother while kicking a kitten. "I hate that f***ing song!" Then she stormed out of the office. My boss almost fell over laughing. I told my boss that Virginia was probably my #1 Fan. I wonder if Virginia would have preferred it as a short story?
The air was thick with pine sap and dust when I caught sight of the sign. It hung half-buried in weeds along Highway 13 — a slab of warped plywood with letters slapped on in lopsided black paint:
COON HUNT FOR CHRIST THIS SATURDAY
THE KING HAS COME BACK
I didn’t know whether to laugh, pray, or keep driving. I chose the last one.
A few miles south, in a small Tennessee town that smelled like fried catfish and diesel fumes, I met her — a slip of a girl with honey hair and a smile that could make a Baptist forget his vows. We danced, we kissed, we planned things. Two years later she was gone.
Ran off with three fellas I knew by name only — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Folks said it like it was natural.
I drifted to the Arkansas line, selling peaches from a roadside stand. Washed them down with something the locals called alligator wine — sweet, swampy, and mean. That’s when a crazy white woman found me. Said she was from Helena, Arkansas, though her accent had too much sin in it to be local. She led me to her motel room, tied me to the bed, and walked out with my shoes and my wallet.
Nights later, under a swollen crossroads moon, I met a man they still write songs about — sharp suit, diamond ring, smile like a blade. He offered me the usual deal: wish for anything, pay with my soul.
I spat in his eye.
He smiled wider.
And from somewhere deep in the black pines, a laugh rose up that didn’t belong to either of us.
While not originally intended to be the follow-up to "BYE BYE", that's pretty much what this song turned out to be. I was sorely missing my Australian friends at the time. One night in bed, the better half was watching Top Gear and they mentioned an Aussie ute called a Maloo. Because it's how my mind works, I had to look up what the word meant. Then the words started to hit. "Storm clouds coming on, everybody running on home" I grabbed a notebook from the spare room and started to scribble words. I wasn't gigging as much as I would've liked, so it wasn't a big deal if I lost the song or not. But it wasn't going to happen!
When I woke up the next day, I went straight to the computer and started looking at Australian maps. I plotted out an imaginary adventure for the song. To this day, they're some of my favorite lyrics ever. And if we're being honest, it makes for a tidy little tale too!
They said Australia would be good for me. Get me out of the States, away from trouble.
They lied.
It started in Amaroo, under a sky that was spitting lightning like the wrath of God. I’d just seen a cockatoo — bright white, eyes like it knew my sins — flapping around the back of a Maloo ute. Locals said it was bad luck. They called it a voodoo cockatoo.
By the time I’d hit Cocklebiddy and Collaroy, the kids were shouting my name like I was some sideshow. A Tiwi Island sista girl grinned at me from across the pub, said she’d mix me a Rob Roy that’d “drop a camel at thirty paces.” I believed her.
That was when the storm rolled in. Heavy clouds stacking high, wind like a whip crack. Everyone bolted for home except me. I ended up in a back room in Narragundah, drinking until I chundered into a plastic tub. Met a girl from Darwin — brown eyes, wicked smile — who pulled my heart out clean and walked away with it, no questions asked.
The storm followed me.
Nightcliff was next — a place where the people sized me up like I was imported white trash on display. I didn’t mind until the magpie swooped. Big ugly thing with murder in its wings — they called it a voodoo magpie — came down screaming and snatched my left eye clean out.
I stumbled through Joondalup blind on one side, thinking maybe this country wasn’t meant for me.
The wind howled like a banshee.
The storm swallowed the streets.
I went bye bye.
