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I wrote this song in 2013. It flowed almost immediately and is the only song i’ve ever sat and literally sobbed while writing. I kind of like to refer to this as my “working class/small town” anthem. It talks about growing up on welfare, hanging out in trailer parks, my relatives going to jail constantly and generally just witnessing all the issues happening around me. It talks about how poor people get reduced to statistics you hear about on the news, numbers on incarceration, over doses, etc.

It brings up a sort of survivor guilt about the fact that I was able to get out of my small town and break that cycle a bit, do different things, but all the people from my past are still there surviving in their own ways. This song isn’t about putting myself above anyone, my child hood made me who I am and i’m lucky to have survived it.

lyrics

Well I aint never lived in a trailer
but i saw many of them
with my mama and her best friends
as they would drink in the kitchen

and i would sit on the front porch
watching my best friend shave her legs
a coffee cup and a razor
we were only 10
we wanted to be women

and grocery store check out line
we were broke, didn’t have a dime
and my mama never had a chance
grandma ignored us
while we paid with food stamps

Oh Jamie, where are you now?
Are you that number that the news is talking about?
Well I remember when we would play at your grandmas house

And my daddy never had a lot
except making promises he mostly forgot
but we’d drink glass cokes
and walk that railroad line
behind his neighborhood
that was another time

Oh and seaboard street aint been the same
since the bank came and took the house away
they locked my daddy in that jail cell
just like his brother
cause you can never help yourself

Well i grew up, mostly got away
the hatred dies but the guilt grows every day
and your names will always chill me
i’m sorry Darlene, I’m sorry Jamie

Oh Darlene where are you now?
I heard your baby’s got a baby
and she’s strung out
with a blacked eye
still living at your house

credits

from Honky Tonk Haze (Deluxe Version​!​), released November 1, 2020

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Alison Self Portland, Oregon

Alison plays honky tonk on the guitar and currently lives in Portland OR after a two year stint in Austin, after a 10 year stint in VA. With a peppering of Denver and Nashville somewhere in there.....

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