Thank you guest Jim. Does anyone know if the person that Jerry Jeff Walker actually wrote the song about, had a dog?
Everytime I really think about this tune it gives me the shivers. It's like you're there. Don't short-change me, I listen to Jim Croce, Harry Chapin, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, to name a few. So I know all about great song writing:

"I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt"

"One time I saw my daddy dance
Watched him movin' like a man in a trance
He brought it back from the war in France"

"You were tryin' to make me a martyr
And that's the one thing I just couldn't do"

But the deeply personal motivating feeling of this song is that it makes me feel like at that very moment in time, in that jail cell, one of the most important events of that day in history was taking place. I know that sounds a bit dramatic and in truth it's not entirely accurate, but when I really start feeling the feeling, the words quickly stop coming.
To me the most emotional part of the song is the line "I met him in a cell in New Orleans (Or "Nawlens", to the people of that fine state" I was down and out. Can't really explain that one either. But I do feel as though my absence from that jail cell that night, unjustly took away an opportunity for me to have one of the most......

The best way that I can put it is by saying that if I was ever granted three wishes, one of them would be to be in that jail cell that night.................DAMN RIGHT

"Honesty is my only exscuse"

"I just don't seem to can't lose"