Story Behind The Song

I started writing this song about Townes Van Zandt, and then a few months later learned that Dave Carter died suddenly of a heart attack while touring the country for the first time. I met Dave at the Kerrville New Folk competition and was in awe of his

Song Description

A cowboy waltz, simply orchestrated on guitar and plantive fiddle, and singing of the loss of a young, lonely folk singer. Nice harmonies in the chorus.

Lyrics

Westerly Skies

An open-mike minstrel, a Tuesday-night singer
When even the drunks were staying at home
But his eyes were wide open--his voice was a hammer
That clawed at strangers with words all his own

He sang of the dry hills--the plain folk of Texas
The bittersweet loves of a one-suitcase man
The dreams of a loner that dead-end in small towns
Of bars and stars and guitars in his hands.

Westerly skies open wide
Rain on the hills and fill the arroyos?
And baptize this sinner with songs of dark water
Blown with the wind of the westerly skies.

Late in the evening when the whiskey was working
And his voice was crying and they?re dying for more
He?s at his best when he?s so damn depressed
The music just dies and lies on the floor.

Singing was easy but damn hard living
The journey he?d chosen so close to the sun
It singed him and spent him and left just a memory
Of a barroom poet unwashed and undone

Westerly skies open wide
Rain on the hills and fill the arroyos
And baptize this sinner with songs of dark water
Blown with the wind of the westerly skies.

Westerly skies open wide
Rain on the hills and fill the arroyos
And baptize this sinner with songs of dark water
Blown with the wind of the westerly skies.

© Greg Beattie