Songs You Should Hear 6/10- From Boulder to Birmingham by Emmylou Harris

From Boulder to Birmingham by Emmylou Harris



A great, great song by Emmylou Harris about her overdosed and dead mentor Gram Parsons. It's from off her 1975 debut album Pieces of the Sky and it's written by her and songwriter Bill Danoff. (Danoff also wrote the songs Take Me Home Country Roads and Afternoon Delight). Emmylou has yet to write, or co-write, a song anywhere near as good as this one is. I don't know who was responsible for the lyrics in the verses but they're the most beautiful and sad evocation of survivor's guilt that I've ever heard.


I don't want to hear a love song
I got on this airplane just to fly
And I know there's life below
But all that it can show me
Is the prairie and the sky

And I don't want to hear a sad story
Full of heartbreak and desire
The last time I felt like this
It was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire
And I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn
I watched it burn, I watched it burn.

Well you really got me this time
And the hardest part is knowing I'll survive.
I have come to listen for the sound
Of the trucks as they move down
Out on ninety five
And pretend that it's the ocean
coming down to wash me clean, to wash me clean
Baby do you know what I mean