Lyr Req: The Pickup Truck Song (Jerry Jeff Walker)

Subject: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW.
From:
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 10:19 PM

I seem to have lost part of the second verse to this song. My kids and I used to sing it alot, but I haven't had the guitar out for a long time.This is for my own use at home. brian

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: doug
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 11:46 PM

messed up again, twice. as i was trying to say somebdoy who knows this system a lot better than me will give you the real dope. in the meantime:

i was drunk the my maw got out of prison, and i went to pick her up in the rain, but befor i could her up, in my old pickup truck she got runned down by a derned old dirty train.

the perfect cw song because it has mamma, pick up, rain, train, drunk and prison.

then theres a chorus

but you don't have to call me darlin, darlin

i disremember the rest, good luck doug

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 11:51 PM

G'day all,

Hey I don't know what I am doing in a thread about "The Pickup Truck Song" ... but I do have a cassette recording of a BBC concert where the fellow (a Yank, of course,) tells of deciding to write the perfect C & W song , with mum, dogs, farms, prison-(escape)s, trucks, trains and death. The result is the song sort of quoted above (and he says: "Serves me right!".

f nobody else comes up with it, I will dredge the depths of the old cassette rack and see if I can find it.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Gene
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 01:20 AM

Right Church/Wrong Pew
Was recorded by David Allen Coe

Click here - * DT DATABASE *

Click here for - * THE COWPIE *

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 03:37 AM

Hmmm. Seems to me that Jerry Jeff sang a different song, where he had a very distinctive way of saying "pickup tru-u-u-uck". For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the song - but I don't think it was the Steve Goodman / David Allen Coe song.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: Lyr Add: THE PICKUP TRUCK SONG (Jerry Jeff Walker)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 04:01 AM

Oh, yeah, it's called.....

THE PICKUP TRUCK SONG
(Jerry Jeff Walker ©Groper Music, BMI)

Yeah, I used to look forward to Saturdays
When me and my grandpa'd get away
We'd hop in his pickup truck and we'd go to town.
It didn't take long before we were through
Then we'd let the pickup truck just wander around.
We'd make a run to the county dump
We'd always wave if we saw someone
Grandpa'd make up a song as we rolled along.
To the post office without fail
We'd get some feed and we'd check out the mail
And we never took the same road twice on the way back home.

I spent a few years out runnin' free
I spent two or three in New York City
And I moved back to Texas tired, hell I'd had enough.
I'd go to Luckenbach on Saturdays
Cause Hondo had a way to brighten up my day
He always made me laugh when we rode in his pickup truck.
We'd make a run to the county dump
We'd always wave if we saw someone
Hondo'd make up a tale as we rolled along.
To the post office without fail
He'd get some chew and we'd check out the mail
And we never took the same road twice on the way back home.

Well I miss Grandpa and Hondo too
I really miss the things that we used to do
So last week I went out and bought an old pickup truck.
Now me and the kids spend Saturdays
We do fun things in a simple way
We love to start the day with a ride in the pickup truck.
We make a run to the county dump
We always wave if we see someone
The kids love to make up a song as we roll along.
To the post office without fail
We get some stamps and we check out the mail
And we never take the same road twice on the way back home.

JRO

Lyrics sent by e-mail

^^

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 05:46 AM

G'day again Doug,

I just had a look at the DT You don't even call me bu my name and some of the lines are reminiscent of the version I heard - on a rebroadcast of a BBC Steve Goodman Concert, if I remember correctly ... but they are not the same. This was more of a routine, between songs, about the writing of "The Perfect Country Song" and ended with a verse or three of the song.

Anyway, I have checked the music cassettes and can;t see where I put that one. I suspect it is tucked away as a short humour segment at the end of one of the 39 cassettes of Goon Show tapes (yes folks .. that is 107 Goon Shows ...!) that kept me alive driving home from gigs in the 1970s/80s. I may find it yet - maybe!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 06:01 AM

When Steve Goodman and David Allan Coe performed this song they both gave it a long introduction which included talk of writing songs together and of ending up worshiping at the porcelain throne. They'd tell how Steve wrote the first couple of verses and sent them to his buddy David Allan Coe ("The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy") telling him he had written the perfect country song. Coe writes back telling Steve he had not written the perfect country song because he left out Mom, prison, trains, trucks, and gettin' drunk. Then Steve creates the last verse. Coe was pleased with the result.

Bob, it sounds to me like someone lifted the whole routine since the monologue was often longer than the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 01:01 AM

G'day Roger,

I'm fairly sure it was a Steve Goodman solo concert, recorded in Britain by the BBC, so he might have varied the routine. It would have been late '70s or early '80s, when I recorded folk programmes that were on while I was out playing somewhere else - and made compilations of songs that interested me.

These short bits from concerts, if they didn't warrant a cassette to themselves, ended up filling holes in other tapes that I often played on the way to and back from gigs (vastly better at keeping me awake that the ABC's late night "Easy Listening" fare). I have a few bits from Steve Goodman and I think this is another, but can't find which of 300 tapes it is!

Ah well! It may remain one of life's little mysteries.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 09:23 AM

On NPR recently someone suggested that if you play country records backwards, the truck starts working again, the crops get un-blighted, and the woman comes back. T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Tiger
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 06:12 PM

Here's the spoken interlude David Allen Coe uses before the last verse (Well, I was drunk....).

Well, a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote this song, and he told me it was the perfect country and western song. I wrote him back a letter and I told him it was not the perfect country and western song because he hadn't said anything about Mama, or trains, or trucks, or prison or gettin' drunk.

Well, he sat down and wrote another verse to the song and he sent it to me, and after readin' it, I realized my friend had written the perfect country & western song and I felt obliged to include it in this album.

The last verse goes like this here...

Subject: You Never Even Call Me By My Name
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 08:33 PM

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the song the original requester wanted is Jerry Jeff Walker's "The Pickup Truck Song." The Steve Goodman song that everybody else is talking about may have an incorrect title in the database (click). On the Steve Goodman Anthology, it's called "You Never Even Call Me By My Name." Both songs are good ones.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: brian e
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 08:44 PM

Thanks all for the help.It is the song by JJW about the kids and Saturdays, etc. Now I can sleep. Joe, you nailed it on the nose. Has anyone heard the new John Prine just out? Last monday on conan obrien was a rerun of John and Iris DeMent(sp?) doing "In Spite Of Ourselves". Definite cantidate for the funniest song I ever heard! Lyrics may not be politically correct, so I don't dare share them at this time. Wife and I love all his music. Thanks again .

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 02:37 AM

Brian, don't leave yet! Where can I find a recording of the Prine/Dement duet? this I gotta hear!
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Dale Rose
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 02:49 AM

check it out here, Joe. I looked in on it earlier today, and it looks like an impressive effort. Iris DeMent, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Connie Smith, Trisha Yearwood, Melba Montgomery, Patty Loveless, Fiona Prine, and Dolores Keane all contribute to the album.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Dale Rose
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 03:03 AM

CDNow has clips of all the songs, including the one mentioned ~~ MPEG of several, too!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: brian e
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 05:31 PM

I think the new John Prine is in a lot of stores.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: to'ThePickupTruckSong' byJerryJeffW
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 18 Dec 99 - 08:54 PM

T in Oklahoma,

I've heard that joke before. I have a collorary. If you play New Age Music backwards, you get New Age Music!

Big RiB