GC's Blog

Goodbye Joe
By GC Smith

Hank Williams in a Cadillac
Never made that Canton act
He lay down his head and died
Fans by the millions cried

Back seat of that Cadillac
Sure wasn't a heart attack
It was livin' wild, livin' fast
Shootin' up when he passed

Ole Hank he had his fill
Of lonely mansion on the hill
No jambalaya or crawfish pie
On the day he chose to die

Hank lived the honky-tonk life
Cheated some on his wife
Swilled quarts of brown liquor
OD on horse made it quicker

I was a kid, about fifteen
When old Hank quit the scene
Went to the devil that’s my bet
It's mine too says daughter Jet

So old Hank went away
Not to return another day
To row a pirogue on the Bayou
He tipped his Stetson and said bye you

Or maybe it was goodbye Joe
got a row to hoe, gotta go;
I’ll tell it straight, tell it level
I gotta go and meet the devil

So we lament that Hank passed on
We could not believe he was gone
That country songs he'd write no more
Old Hank's locked behind devil's door




Note: Nineteen hundred and fifty-three, country singer Hank Williams Sr., 29, died of a drug and alcohol overdose while en route to a concert date in Canton, Ohio.

Published in the Coyote's Den