Waylon Jennings Live!
Lyrics
Drunk at the Meskwaki casino
Right where God intended me to be
Looking up at the one man in this room
Who's handled more cocaine than me
Think back on the good times just an hour or so ago
Before I got myself this drunk
When the valet parked my rented Mitsubishi
With a beat up old brown suitcase in the trunk
Full of firearms and flash drives
Full of passports
And international money orders
For just in case I make it cross the border
Get a postcard from the gift shop
Let my family know I'm doing fine
Looking up at a map up on the ceiling
To find the place where we all meet up further on down the line
Head back to my table
Get another scotch and soda for the road
The band on stage is really working up a head of steam
Close my eyes and lean my head back, dream a little dream
Full of firearms and flash drives
Full of passports
And international money orders
For just in case I make it 'cross the border
Banter
- I was on my way to a reading in Chapel Hill, I live next door in Durham, and listening to Honky Tonk Heroes by Waylon Jennings, and as you do you start to think about how you might try to write a fake Waylon Jennings song. (2018-05-27 Old Town School of Folk Music)
- I've had another brief insight in between dissociative moments in that one [Maybe Sprout Wings] where I realized that, I mean, most of my songs have some level of sad in them. But the saddest Mountain Goats songs are not the ones in which people wanna die. Because those people know that they will be free. The saddest Mountain Goats songs are the ones where the narrator knows he's not gonna die. and that this could conceivably go on for decades after this. This next song actually belongs to the first category. You can hear, there's a little bit of jubilation in knowing that it will soon be over. The end won't be pretty but it will be an end. It will surprise exactly no one to know that I wrote the first line to this one at a stoplight while listening to an album called Honky Tonk Heroes by Waylon Jennings. (2019-04-30 Brooklyn Steel)
- Let me tell you something about how much I love you. [reciprocating crowd shouts] This is real, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to convey it to you in a way that is meaningful to you. And if I'm the only person having a meaningful experience here, then that's a very imbalanced equation, so I'm really hoping that I can communicate this. so I started doing this, alone, in front of a crowd by myself, and I didn't use picks, because I found them noxious. I thought they were gross, and I found anything that stands between me and the thing I'm trying to do feels very artificial, like a raincoat inside or something like that. And what I just did was took out the in ear monitors, because I wanna hear you guys better. [crowd woos enthusiastically] In ear monitors give you great clarity of sound in listening to each other, but the Pittsburgh audience has been so kind and amaing to us for a lot of years now, thank you, and then a seocnd thing happened. And that was, I was starting to play, with a pick, and I thought, no, this feels like you do it without the pick, which is a sign of comfort and a feeling of feeling at home, so thank you so much. I would now like to play for you a song about a man who deals in arms and information, whose luck is running out, and he knows his luck is running out, you know, you can only work in that business for so long before somebody's gonna pull your number. and his number is right about to get pulled as soon as he finishes watching Waylon Jennings play in the middle of Iowa sometime in the 80s. (2019-05-07 Mr. Smalls Theatre)
- I wouldn't normally say that, I try to discourage debauched behavior, but I'd like to dedicate this to the drunkest person in the room. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. (2023-10-07 Ace of Spades)
- This song takes place in the land where our liberties we prize and our rights we shall maintain. And those of you who are from Minnesota but recognize that as the Iowa state motto, I respect that! This song takes place down in Iowa, most likely around Tama county, but. It's about a fella who figures there's no better place to hide from the Federales than central Iowa. And y'know, he's right until he's wrong. He's just watching Waylon Jennings play and waiting for the cops to show up, circa 1998. (2024-04-12 The Palace)
Live Performances
Footnotes