Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon
Sittin' on the front porch coolin' in the shade
Singin' every song the radio played

Waitin' for the Alabama sun to go down
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town
Me and Lillian

Just across the line
And a little southeast of Meridian

She loved her brother I remember back when
He was fixin' up a '49 Indian
He told her, ?Little sister, gonna ride the wind
Up around the moon and back again"

He never got farther than Vietnam
I was standin' there with her
When the telegram come for Lillian

Now he's lyin' somewhere
About a million miles from Meridian

She said, ?There's not much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there is a great big world
That's where I'm bound"

"And the stars might fall on Alabama
But one of these days I'm gonna swing
My hammer down"

Away from this red dirt town
I'm gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard

Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in

Across a red dirt line
Just a little south east of Meridian

Yes, she tried hard to love him
But it never did take
Just another way for the heart to break
So she learned [Incomprehensible]

One thing they don't tell you about the blues
When you got 'em
You keep on fallin' 'cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't no end at least not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid
She was only 27 and she had five kids
Could-a been the whiskey, could-a been the pills
Could-a been the dream she was tryin' to kill

But there won't be a mention in the new little world
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl
Named Lillian

Who never got any farther
Across the line than Meridian

Now the stars still fall on Alabama
Tonight she finally laid
That hammer down without a sound
In the red dirt ground

Copyright: Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Writer(s): EMMYLOU HARRIS