Notes Coming Soon!

1. Shallow Water

I will not drown in shallow water
Not with your love within my reach
I did not come this far to falter
And will not rest until I’m free

Words & music by Tom Kimmel
©1991 The Night Rainbow Music/Morrissette Music (admin. by HoriPro Entertainment Group, Inc.)(ASCAP)

2. Goodbye Pontiac

Daddy drove North, Daddy drove home
Packed up everything we owned
Sister born in Pontiac, after we left Arkansas
Never even heard a Mockingbird’s song

People say you need a skill
If you’re gonna work in that town
Now they got some time to kill
Set ‘em up and knock ‘em down

Goodbye Pontiac
Guess you won’t be coming back
How I’m gonna miss you my old friend

Goodbye Pontiac
For all you were and all you might have been
I thought that ride would never end

We went up in droves, with our hopes and fears
Half the county left in those years
Some made Evansville, some wound up in Kokomo
Broken parts left along that road

And gettin’ there’s the easy part
Then you take a look around
If you don’t get a union card
Buddy you can head back South

Funny how the story goes
Bonnevilles and GTOs
Dreams we built have disappeared
And now the jobs are all down here

Words & music: Kate Campbell, Pierce Pettis & Tom Kimmel
©2009 Large River Music (BMI)/Slapfight Songs (ASCAP)/Morrissette Music (ASCAP)

3. Wrought Iron Fences

Tangled vines cover the lattice
They creep and crawl around the house
Nobody lives there
Only ghosts hang around

I have seen hope and glory fade away
I’ve heard old folks talk of better days
And all that’s left to guard the remains
Are wrought iron fences

Sarah Mae bore two children
One died at birth and one at Shiloh
Now they’re on a hill long forgotten
Carved in stone

Years go by and everything changes
But nothing does

Words and music by Kate Campbell / Ira Campbell / Johnny Pierce
© 1996 Large River Music (BMI) Cedarsong Publishing (BMI)


4. Legacy

It is a legacy
It was handed down to me
Poor dirt farmer
Skinny mule

Parched the red clay
Like it was the Red Sea
It is a legacy
Both me and you

You are a black man
I am a white man
Both come from southland
Both doing the best we can

Well the grim reaper
Is my brother’s keeper
The way my brother was kept
Small wonder Jesus wept

Is it a legacy
Passed down to you and me
What we’re taught to believe
We never question these things

It is a legacy
It’s a wild and bitter seed
Blown across those fertile fields
Where the roots run deep

Both got calloused hands
Blue collared working men
Down here in Bubba land
What’s in a name

Both living rent to rent
Some owe the government
We are quite different
We are the same

It is a legacy
Passed down to you and me
What we learn to believe
We never question these things

It is a legacy
A wild and bitter seed
Blown across those fertile fields
Where the roots run deep

Sundays we congregate
Praise Jesus, pass the plate
Sitting in our Sunday best
Singing hymns and wiping sweat

We learn the golden rule
In separate Sunday schools
Our house long divided against itself

It is a legacy
Passed down to you and me
What we choose to believe
We dare not question these things

It is a legacy
It is a wild and bitter seed
Scattered on those fertile fields
Where the roots run deep

Words and music by Pierce Pettis
©1985 Let’s Have Lunch Music (ASCAP)

5. Borders

I was born on the border between Texas and Tennessee
There’s a whole lot of Tennessee in Texas and Texas in me
The wheels on the Trace rolled both ways when we moved overland
The great Mississippi we crossed like the real Rio Grande

We were called Volunteers when we moved from the rear
To the front where we stood as one band

And we stood for love we left behind us
Love we hope to save
Love that’s yet to find us
Love beyond the grave

I take my coffee with whiskey come out of the Tennessee hills
Make my cornbread with fresh jalapenos like most Texans will
And when my sweetheart sings mi corazon es tuyo
I may not know what that means
All I can say is she sounds like an angel to me

Y donde dormimos, deep mountain laurel
Drifts into a bluebonnet dream

And we dream of love we left behind us
Love we hope to save
Love that’s yet to find us
Love beyond the grave

Now we’ve got Bob Wills in Nashville, Hank Williams in Dallas
And everyone else in between
And over and over we meet at the border and sing

And we sing for love we left behind us
Love we hope to save
Love that’s yet to find us
Love beyond the grave

Words & music: Kate Campbell, Pierce Pettis & Tom Kimmel
©2009 Large River Music (BMI)/Slapfight Songs (ASCAP)/Morrissette Music (ASCAP)

6. Pick The Devil’s Pocket

The agent said to plant your field
With beans and corn but that don’t yield
With five percent of burley leaf
We kept that conversation brief
Cause a man that draws a weekly check
Ain’t out for sticking out his neck
And you don’t always get to choose
When you’re walling in my shoes

So you pick the devil’s pocket
You’re haunted by the Holy Ghost
Once you start it’s hard to stop it
So you pick the devil’s pocket

It used to be U.S.D.A.
Made sure the middleman got paid
The auctioneer would speak in tongues
You earned your keep when your work was done
But now there ain’t no bottom line
With no such thing as overtime
The sun comes up, the sky turns blue
And you do what you’ve go to do

So you pick the devil’s pocket
You’re taking what you need the most
Once you start it’s hard to stop it
When you live on tobacco road

You know I can’t get past this now
Of those who bled and cleared this ground
There ain’t a day that I forget
Who coughs up case for cigarettes

So you pick the devil’s pocket
You’re haunted by the Holy Ghost
Once you start it’s hard to stop it
You’ve got to keep the ship afloat

Words & music: Kate Campbell, Pierce Pettis & Tom Kimmel
©2009 Large River Music (BMI)/Slapfight Songs (ASCAP)/Morrissette Music (ASCAP)


7. Look Away

I can still recall the night
Lightning burned the mansion down
We all stood in out pajamas
On that hallowed southern ground
When the flames had turned to ashes
Only blackened bricks remained
And sixteen stately Doric columns
There beneath a veil of gray
And it’s a long and slow surrender
Retreating from the past
It’s important to remember
To fly the flag half-mast
And look away
I was taught by elders wiser
Love your neighbor, love your God
Never saw a cross on fire
Never saw an angry mob
I saw sweet magnolia blossoms
I chased lightening bugs at night
Never dreaming others saw our way of life
In black and white
Part of me hears voices crying
Part of me can feel their weight
Part of me believes that mansion
Stood for something more than hate


Words and music by Kate Campbell & Walt Aldridge
© 1995 Fame Publishing Company Inc. (BMI)
Rick Hall Music Inc. / Watertown Music (ASCAP)

8. Natchez Trace

A tunnel cuts into this greenness
Under the roof of this wild place
Down into the heart of darkness
Along the Natchez Trace

There is no way to fill the silence
Measure the lateness of this age
But for the turning of the seasons
Along the Natchez Trace

Oh, Mississippi
Show your hand, I’ll
Read your fortune and your fate
Oh, Mississippi
I’ll trace your lifeline
Along the Natchez Trace

The journey is forever lonely
Each step a slow and measured pace
Always mindful of the bandits who wait
Along the Natchez Trace

Oh, Mississippi
I’d like to know you
But you will not show your face
Lost in a dream state
Some still wander
Along the Natchez Trace

There is no way to fill the silence
Measure the lateness of this age
But for the turning of the seasons
Along the Natchez Trace


Words & music by Pierce Pettis
©1985 Let’s Have Lunch Music (ASCAP)

9. Drive South

Poem by Tom Kimmel
©2012 Point Clear Press


10. Woe To You, Rich Man

Woe to you rich man, weep and wail
Woe to you rich man, weep and wail
Woe to you rich man, weep and wail
The pride of man feeds the fires of hell

Blessed are the poor
For yours is the Kingdom
Blessed are the hungry
For you shall be fed
Blessed are you
Who find yourself crying
For the day is coming soon
You’ll be laughing instead

Blessed are the mourners
For you’ll find comfort
And blessed are the meek
You’re gonna own this place
And blessed are you
Who long to be righteous
For only the pure in heart
Are gonna see His face

A well lit house
Makes the world welcome
The light inside
Makes them feel at home
But if your house is dark
Only thieves approach you
They’ll take everything they can
And leave you alone

Words & music: Kate Campbell, Pierce Pettis & Tom Kimmel
©2009 Large River Music (BMI)/Slapfight Songs (ASCAP)/Morrissette Music (ASCAP)

11. Warm Springs

Funeral train winds through the south
Plain folks stand along its route
I move to take my place among the crowd
Beside a black man humming Glory Bound
As tears roll down his face

In Warm Springs
When the Georgia sun goes down
The moon can tell your story
When you’ve forgotten how
And the higher that it rises, the more you feel at home
Now that’s a song the angels long to sing
In Warm Springs

To think that just a few days back
That train rolled in, he waved his hat
And now that same old train is draped in black
To bless us here along this track
With sweet uncommon grace

When some souls carry us so long
We can’t believe it when they’re gone
We’re left behind with all our hopes and fears
But if our hearts were ever lifted
Aren’t they lifted still
So if it had to end, it might as well end here

In Warm Springs
When the Georgia sun goes down
The moon can tell your story
When you’ve forgotten how
And the higher that it rises, the more you feel at home
Now that’s a song the angels long to sing
And when you hear it you’ll know what it means
In Warm Springs


Words & music: Kate Campbell, Tom Kimmel, Pierce Pettis
©2009 Large River Music (BMI)/Morrissette Music (ASCAP)/Slapfight Music (ASCAP)

12. Eulogy

Poem by Tom Kimmel
©2012 Point Clear Press

13. Funeral Food

Aunt Fidelia brought the rolls
With her green bean casserole
The widow Smith down the street
Dropped by a bowl of butter beans
Plastic cups and silverware
Lime green Tupperware everywhere
Pass the chicken, pass the pie
We sure eat good when someone dies

Funeral food
It’s so good for the soul
Funeral food
Fills you up down to your toes
Funeral food
Funeral food

There sits mean ole Uncle Bob
Gnawing on a corn on the cob
And who’s that walking through the door
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before
Isn’t it a shame she passed away
She made the best chocolate cake
Let’s hit the line a second time
We sure eat good when someone dies

Everybody’s here for the feast
But come next week where will they be

Words and music by Kate Campbell / Ira Campbell / Johnny Pierce
© 1997 Large River Music (BMI) / Cedarsong Publishing (BMI)


14. Ride Across The River

We are soul soldiers
Marching through the world on the road to peace
We will cross over battlefields
And we will rise above it all
We will stand together till we fall
Then we’ll ride across the river
And rest under the shade of the trees

Take my hand, Brother
Help me to my knees when it’s time to pray
Lift me up, make me strong
When I’m tempted to run away
Help me take what you’ve begun
Carry on until the work is done
And rest under the shade of the trees

We will ride
(Ride across the river)
We will ride
(Ride across the river)
We will ride across the river
And rest under the shade of the trees

Here I am, Sister
Lead me through the night when it’s hard to see
Help me cry and remember
When I can’t seem to feel a thing
Help me face the rising sun
See the light of love in everyone
Then we’ll ride across the river
And rest under the shade of the trees

Words and music by Tom Kimmel and Danny Flowers
©2006 Morrissette Music/Dashboard Slapping Music (ASCAP)

15.Godspeed

Godspeed, God keep
His countenance upon you 
Give you peace
Godspeed, speed of light
May traveling mercies 
Go with thee tonight

Be well, be warm
May angels watching
Keep you from all harm
Godspeed, speed of light
May traveling mercies
Go with thee tonight

Take the road, homeward bound
May you reach your destination
Safe and sound
Godspeed, sleep tight
May tender mercies
Rest on thee tonight

Godspeed, speed of light
May traveling mercies
Go with thee tonight

Words and music by Pierce Pettis and Kate Campbell
©1997 Polygram Music Publishing (ASCAP)/Large River (BMI)

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