Terry Allen - Amarillo Highway

Real Country music isn't dead in this day and age of Nashville crossover pop-rock.  You just have to look around for it.  "Texas Country Music" is a genre of Country music from (duh) Texas that is still true to its red dirt roots.  Terry Allen is from Lubbock, son of a Texas League coach.  He began writing songs in High School and had an album by 1975 - one that Rolling Stone called an "outlaw classic".

This is maybe his most famous song, and Robert Earl Keen's rendition may be the most well known.  But lots of big names have covered his songs, including Willie Nelson, Little Feat, and David Byrne.  But the roots go deep in west Texas.  Country Music is alive and well, and if you look around you can still find it.



Amarillo Highway (Songwriter: Terry Allen)

I'm a high straight in Plainview
A side bet in Idalou
An' a fresh deck in New Deal
Yeah some call me high hand
And some call me low hand
But I'm holding what I am the wheel
'Cause I'm panhandlin' manhanlin'
Post holin' high rollin' dust bowlin' Daddy
I ain't got no blood in my veins
I just got them four lanes
Of hard Amarillo Highway 

I don't wear no Stetson
But I'm willin' to bet son
That I'm big a Texan as you are
There's a girl in her bare feet
Asleep on the back seat
And that trunk's full of Pear beer and Lone Star 

'Cause I'm panhandlin' manhanlin'
Post holin' high rollin' dust bowlin' Daddy
I ain't got no blood in my veins
I just got them four lanes
Of hard Amarillo Highway 

Gonna hop outta bed
Pop a pill in my head
Bust the hub for the Golden Spread
Under Blue Skies
Gonna stuff my hide
Behind some Power Glide
Get some southern friend
Back in my hide 

'Cause I'm panhandlin' manhanlin'
Post holin' high rollin' dust bowlin' Daddy
I ain't got no blood in my veins
I just got them four lanes
Of hard Amarillo Highway 

As close as I'll ever get to Heaven
Is makin' speed up old eighty-seven
Of that hard Amarillo Highway