The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169891 Message #4115994
Posted By: robomatic
09-Aug-21 - 11:49 PM
Thread Name: US Highways (fed and state) and songs about them
Subject: Lyr Add: CANOL ROAD (Stan Rogers)
I just posted a song about an American road. But I can't resist this magnificent Canadian lyric by the immortal Stan Rogers. If you haven't heard it,
Well, you could see it in his eyes as they strained against the night And the bone-white-knuckled grip upon the road Sixty-five miles into town, and a winter's thirst to drown A winter still with two months left to go
His eyes are too far open, his grin too hard and sore His shoulders too far high to bring relief But the Kopper King is hot, even if the band is not And it sure beats shooting whiskey jacks and trees
Then he laughs and says "It didn't get me this time, not tonight I wasn't screaming when I hit the door" But his hands on the tabletop, will their shaking never stop Those hands sweep the bottles to the floor
Now he's a bear in a blood-red mackinaw with hungry dogs at bay And springtime thunder in his sudden roar With one wrong word, he burns, and the table's overturned When he's finished there's a dead man on the floor
Well, they watched for him in Carmacks, Haines, and Carcross With Teslin blocked, there's nowhere else to go But he hit the four-wheel drive in Johnson's Crossing Now he's thirty-eight miles up the Canol road He's thirty-eight miles up the Canol road In the Salmon Range at forty-eight below
Well, it's God's own neon green above the mountains here tonight Throwing brittle coloured shadows on the snow It's four more hours till dawn, and the gas is almost gone And that bitter Yukon wind begins to blow
Now you can see it in his eyes as they glitter in the light And the bone-white rime of frost around his brow Too late the dawn has come, that Yukon winter has won And he's got his cure for cabin fever now
Well, they watched for him in Carmacks, Haines, and Carcross With Teslin blocked, there's nowhere else to go But they hit the four-wheel drive in Johnson's Crossing Found him thirty-eight miles up the Canol road They found him thirty-eight miles up the Canol road In the Salmon Range at forty-eight below They found him thirty-eight miles up the Canol road