Mama comes in from the kitchen
She tells me to fetch my brother
She wipes her hands on her apron
And says don’t be late for supper
I walk out on the front porch
The suns about to die
It’s still so hot the old dogs wouldn’t bark
Even if a car’s to drive by
There s a blue green Buick
And a flat black Ford
Jacked up off the ground
Daddy sitting on a stump and he’s looking bewildered
At the parts lying all around
We ain’t been no where at all since the Fairlane threw a rod
Whatever it is has been damned to hell by my daddy and God
Some are here working on a passage to Heaven
And others they can’t carry that load
A few are left singing the blues on Purgatory Road
It is just a mile or so to the edge of town
There ain’t much of one here now since the factories closed down
You got no jobs you got no people you got no businesses
The only thing left is the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witness
Mama she took me to church one time gonna get me baptized
Further on down the road there is something I realized
Now you might say its contempt prior to investigation
But nobody seems concerned about their Saviors procrastination
Some are here working on a passage to Heaven
And others they can’t carry that load
A few are left singing the blues on Purgatory Road
I just past the cemetery with it’s tumped over tomb stones
There’s a little tavern that’s called the Devils Backbone
It’s got your distilled spirits and Tennessee Sour Mash
And a little sign that says in God we trust, all others pay cash
My brother’s sitting on a chair in front of an old tweed amplifier
He’s playing bottle neck slide, steel on wire
Now when his mother died and his daddy left my momma she brought him home
And even thought he ain’t blood she raised him as her own
So now he sings them blues on an old Gibson 160E
And he don’t even now what color he is cause he can’t see
Some are here working on a passage to Heaven
And others they can’t carry that load
A few are left singing the blues on Purgatory Road
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Ray Wylie Hubbard Lyrics – Purgatory Road