My parents lived outside of Tyler for more than 20 years. They moved there after I graduated from Texas A&M, so I never lived in East Texas. But in a couple of decades running up and down Highway 31 to go visit, I got a sense of the place.
After awhile, I noticed that almost every little town you run across (about every 8 goddamn miles, if you're in a hurry) had a dollar store and a doughnut shop. It didn't take long before I decided that a song about an East Texas town called "Dollars to Doughnuts" would be my ticket to fame and fortune. I kinda pictured 2013-era Kacey Musgraves singing it. Yeah, this has been cooking for awhile.
(Yeah, I know, without music, it's just poetry. And my last song/poem wasn't much of a hit. I'm just adding to the list of things I can do not quite well enough to be in demand.)
I thought about the obvious: the guy-gets-the-hell-out-of-the-small-town song. And I figured, shit, there's way too many of those songs. Steve Earle's "Someday" comes to mind.
No, I wanted to write a song about the guy who doesn't make it ... and knows it.
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"Dollars to Doughnuts: A Song For East Texas"
Out on Highway 31 we all shop at our own dollar store
The general draws a crowd to the western edge of our 2-bit town
And the doughnut shop, it’s the final stop out on the eastern side
You can see one from the other ‘bout as soon as you turn around
The kind Tim McGraw would get all y’all to loudly sing along
If it were, dollars to doughnuts, my ass would be long gone
But I ain’t left, and I guess I won’t, hell it’s someone else’s song
I was made and born in the back of a car, halfway to Athens
I couldn’t wait for the hospital, already going nowhere fast
Been here most of 50 years -- you can call it roots or rot or rust
It ain’t how I wanted it, every year was gonna be my last
I got a job at the Kidd Jones, killing time selling cigs and beer
Got an old shotgun house couple blocks down on Birdsong Avenue
If I was strong, I’d be gone, but I guess I just ain’t brave enough
It’s a poor man’s hell to have a little more than nothing left to lose
The kind Tim McGraw would get all y’all to loudly sing along
If it were, dollars to doughnuts, my ass would be long gone
But I ain’t left, and I guess I won’t, hell it’s someone else’s song
Had a girl and a couple kids but they’ve been gone these last few years
They came to judge me by what I’d lost, though I gave it all away
I acted right, but I had no fight, guess I can admit it now
I swear they were sitting on my stump, yelling where the hell’s the shade?
The kind Tim McGraw would get all y’all to loudly sing along
If it were, dollars to doughnuts, my ass would be long gone
But I ain’t left, and I guess I won’t, hell it’s just not my song
Everytime I look in there mirror, there’s a little bit more of me, a little less of who I used to be
Gonna die a stranger, in a place I never left