Lyr Add: You're a Detour on the Highway to Heaven

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: You're a Detour on the Highway to Heaven
From: GUEST,Nita
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 02:47 PM

"You're a Detour..." was written by a group of women mystery writers. They included Sharyn McCrumb, an award-winning novelist who writes about Appalachia, Joan Hess, whose mystery characters live in Arkansas, and Dorothy Cannell. Elizabeth Peters, who wrote the Amelia Peabody mystery series, included the lyrics and some comments on the song's origin in her 1994 book "Last Train to Memphis" and Hess included it in her "O Little Town of Maggody", also in 1994.

Subject: RE: ADD: Detour On The Highway To Heaven
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 08:41 AM

Fantastic song!

Subject: RE: ADD: Detour On The Highway To Heaven
From: chazkratz
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 08:17 AM

Yup, bdfk, "seed" being me in an earlier incarnation. The wonders of the forum search engine, huh?

Charles

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Yer a Detour on Highway to Heaven
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 12 May 99 - 03:27 AM

Right, campfire--that first feeble thrust into feminism in country music:) --seed

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Yer a Detour on Highway to Heaven
From: campfire
Date: 11 May 99 - 11:43 PM

and, of course, the final remake, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels".

I'm not sure it was God who made HTML, either.

campfire

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Yer a Detour on Highway to Heaven
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 11 May 99 - 10:52 PM

Aw, the hell with it. Anybody who knows the tune can figure out the chords easily enough. By the way, "The Wild Side of Life" is also known as "(I Didn't Know God Made) Honky Tonk Angels," and of course, if you don't know them, you might know "I"m Thinking Tonight of My Blue-Eyes."

Here's the first verse again, without the mess created by the chords"

When Mama lay a-dyin' on the flatbed,
She tol' me not to truck with girls like you,
But I was blinded by the glare of your headlights
And lost my way a-starin' at the view.

And the first word of the chorus, is, of course, "You're," not Youlre (I thought I caught all those little buggers--when I copy things from my word processor and drop them in here, I have to convert all the apostrophes, quotes, and commas--that is, I have to erase them and retype them here).

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: Yer a Detour on Highway to Heaven
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 11 May 99 - 02:23 AM

That is so-oo-o-o- weird. But I suppose you can get the idea (or maybe Joe can straighten it up--he has the key to the threads). --seed

Subject: Lyr Add: YOU'RE A DETOUR ON THE HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 11 May 99 - 02:20 AM

I thought I posted this song several months ago but a forum search by title and by key phrases failed to turn it up, as did a search of my own postings, some 600 over the past 11 months. It, and not "You Never Even Call Me by My Name<" is the perfect country song. No trains and no gettin' drunk (other than implied), but dyin' mama, loose woman, trucks up the yazoo, bein' lost on the highway, and a passel of the wildest country metaphors you've ever heard. And it doesn't even need Charlie Pride and Merle Haggard imitations to make it work:

YOU'RE A DETOUR ON THE HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN Melody: "The Great Speckled Bird" or "The Wild Side of Life"

              C                                         F
When Mama lay a-dyin' on the flatbed,
         G7                                                      C               G7
She tol' me not to truck with girls like you;
                      C                                              F
But I was blinded by the glare of your headlights
                    G7                               C
And went joy-ridin' just for the view.

(Chorus)
You¹re 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 Mama 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 hope I did the HTML right for the chord placement--it was fine when I wrote it in Claris Works, but it looks funny here. --seed

Subject: RE: LYR ADD:
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Feb 99 - 04:19 AM

Seed, I gotta know more about the "Born Once Gospel Singers"! Have you ever done a prayer breakfast for the Christian Deer Hunters?

Apologies to the religious...there's a lot of us heathens in Canada.

Subject: Lyr Add: YOU'RE A DETOUR ON THE HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
From: --seed
Date: 15 Feb 99 - 02:41 AM

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

Subject: RE: LYR ADD:
From: Mohammed
Date: 15 Feb 99 - 02:41 AM

hlloooooooooooooooooooooo..............slammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Subject: RE: LYR ADD:
From: seed
Date: 15 Feb 99 - 02:21 AM

-Art, I couldn't have said it better myself. --seed

Subject: RE: LYR ADD:
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Feb 99 - 12:05 AM

excrete the impeashment but cornedbeef tastes better
peppermeat rolls if yo give it a kickkkkkkkk
alas alas alas alas . Why shouldn't
Keep on the sunny side or condem condem condem

Say, what's wrong. This thing won't post right

Subject: RE: LYR ADD:
From: alison
Date: 14 Feb 99 - 10:50 PM

Hi Seed,

Joe is on holiday for a few days... but if you check in other threads you'll see we've all been having the same problem with bits of postings disappearing...

Hopefully Max is still trying to fix it....

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: LYR ADD:
From: --seed
Date: 13 Feb 99 - 06:30 PM

Hey, Joe--Any idea why I can't get this damned thing to post? --seed

Subject: LYR ADD:DetourOnTheHighwayToHeaven
From:
Date: 13 Feb 99 - 06:25 PM

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

When Mama lay a-dyin' on the flatbed,
She told me not to truck with girls like you;
But I w sun instead. Thanks link.net

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