Emmylou Harris - Red Dirt Girl (with LYRICS)

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“She tried hard to love him but it never did take, it was just another way for the heart to break.... so she learned to bend”
A wonderful but immensely sad & tragic ‘fictional’ song 'Red Dirt Girl' written & sung by Emmylou Harris about a young girl from a small American rural town Meridian where all her hopes & dreams went no further than the quiet little rural town where she was born & raised, Meridian. She loved her brother who told his little sister "gonna ride the wind, up around the moon & back again" but he never got farther than Vietnam, never to return to his home rural town of Meridian. She marries extremely young, having 5 children by 27yo to a young local man whom she didn’t love, then ultimately the heavy burden & responsibilities she was carrying for someone so young unfortunately became all too much for her, with her final crutch being the whiskey & pills, thus tragically leading to her death & thus she lays to rest in the cemetery grounds of her red dirt hometown of Meridian.
A fictional story that could possibly happen to any young person, especially when brought up in a remote far away rural town anywhere in the world, with family expectation is to stay & raise a family in their town of birth being foremost in the families interests.
Emmylou Harris's explanation behind lyrics to Red Dirt Girl - "I am very, very inspired by the sound of words & the names of places are so melodic & beautiful," she said. "I was passing through Meridian on my way down to record in New Orleans & that's what started it." "But what really took it over the edge for me was on a night off in New Orleans we went to see Boys Don't Cry," Emmylou continued. "It unnerved me, not only because of the violence & homophobia, but also because of the underlying theme of how trapped those young people were.
We all come into this world with so much potential & so many dreams. Who knows why some people escape & other people don't? The key idea is in the lyric, 'There won't be any mentions on The News of the World.'" Emmylou told the story of the song to American Songwriter magazine: "I had driven to New Orleans with my dog Bonaparte & passed a sign for Meridian & I started making rhymes in my head. So I had this rhyme scheme but I didn't know what it was about. You get crushes on words & then the rhymes come. Anyways, right after I got there, I went to see the movie Boys Don't Cry.
This story about the lost lives of these young people with nowhere to go & it turns into such negative things …" "I've had this incredibly blessed life, but I created this character who'd had all of these hopes … and I just made this story up inspired by my remembrances of the south. I also imposed the lives of these kids from Boys Don't Cry. Who knows where these songs come from? It's such a mystery to me. Sometimes, I think, 'God, I really wrote that?'" A stunning, sad song, about everyday life in America.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Emmylou Harris - Red Dirt Girl - LYRICS
Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon
Sittin on the front porch cooling in the shade
Singin every song the radio played
Waitin for the Alabama sun to go down
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town
Me and Lillian
Just across the line and a little southeast of Meridian
She loved her brother I remember back when
He was fixin up a '49 Indian
He told her "Little sister, gonna ride the wind”
“Up around the moon and back again"
He never got farther than Vietnam
I was standin' there with her when the telegram come
For Lillian
Now he's lyin' somewhere about a million miles from Meridian
She said there's not much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there is a great big world
That's where I'm bound
And the stars might fall on Alabama
But one of these days I'm gonna swing my hammer down
Away from this red dirt town
I'm gonna make a joyful sound
She grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in
Across a red dirt line just a little south east from Meridian
She tried hard to love him but it never did take
It was just another way for the heart to break
So she learned to bend
But one thing they don't tell you about the blues when you got em
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't know end
At least not for Lillian
Nobody knows when she started her skid
She was only 27 and she had five kids
Coulda' been the whiskey, coulda’ been the pills
Coulda been the dream she was trying to kill
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl
Named Lillian
Who never got any further across the line than Meridian
Now the stars still fall on Alabama
Tonight she finally laid that hammer down
Without a sound
In the red dirt ground