"By day I drive a school bus in Elko, Nevada
I used to deal out blackjack at the Desert Jewel Cafe
got a shack outside of town where the dry wash meets the highway
there my poor heart's achin' for my flow'r that's blown away

As the cards fell from my hands I'd watch her face and she'd be smilin
servin coffee to them drivers on the Frisco-Denver run
but when some Nevada tumbleweed stole away my darlin
I could not finf a reason in this world for keepin on

I'm the cold coyote master of a tumbleweed plantation
I'd have made this dry ravine a garden if she'd been my wife
and when thwe cold wind drives the snow down from the mountain 'cross the basin
I know that this old desert's just as lonely as my life"

(I forget the next verse -)

"....looking for my darlin in the brown glass of a bottle
with my fingers round the bedpost rail and teardrops in my eyes

I'm the cold coyote master of a tumbleweed plantation
I should quit this town tomorrow, leave the past and turn the page
but I guess I've just decided, Lord, I'm here for the duration
til my life becomes a desert wind that blows across the sage"


-I met LH in Berkeley in 1971 at the F&S. I was 20. I had just sung a song I'd learned from a Mad River album (Cherokee Queen). I got off the stage and was approached by a rather beautiful woman who said her "old man" (was a standard phrase at the time) had sung the song on the record and was going to stop by the Freight later that evening.

He did, he played Flight 641 and another good song "Pale-Eyed Companion", and the "Tumbleweed Plantation" I wrote down above, which he taught to me at his home on Milvia St. a day or two later when I stopped by for a hero-worship opportunity. He couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 years older than me - but way out of my league as musician and esp. songwriter.

"You gotta be able to play it in your sleep"

Well, I'll check out the MySpace link sometime soon.