The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9110   Message #58644
Posted By: --seed
15-Feb-99 - 02:41 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: You're a Detour on the Highway to Heaven
Subject: Lyr Add: YOU'RE A DETOUR ON THE HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
I'll just enter the whole song again. As I said in the earlier attempt to post which no one saw, this--not "You Never Even Call Me by My Name"--is the perfect country song. Although it lacks rain, a train, prison, and gettin' drunk, it has Momma, it has a truck, plus it has a honky-tonk woman, that lost highway, and heaven--and it has the most wonderful bunch of overblown country metaphors of any song I ever heard.

YOU'RE A DETOUR ON THE HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
(tune: The Great Speckled Bird)

When Momma lay a-dyin' on the flatbed,
She told me not to truck with girls like you,
But I was blinded by the glare of your headlights,
And went joy-ridin' just for the view.

(chorus)
You're a detour on the highway to heaven.
I am lost on the back roads of sin.
I have got to get back to the four-lane,
So that I can see Momma again.

Your curves made me lose my direction,
My hands from the steering wheel strayed,
But you were just one more roadside attraction:
It's been ten thousand miles since I prayed.

If you ever get out of the fast lane,
And get back to that highway above,
I'll be waiting for you at the tollbooth,
In that land where all roads end in love.

I don't know who wrote this. One of my fellow Born Once Gospel Singers found it on an album (we're playing tomorrow night: I'll try to find out).

--seed