[ti:Twisted Laurel] [ar:Robert Earl Keen] [al:Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions (Deluxe Edition)] [by:] [offset:0] [00:00.00]Twisted Laurel - Robert Earl Keen [00:15.08]Just across the blue ridge [00:18.94]Where the high meadows lay [00:22.26]And the galax spreads through the new mown hay [00:28.91]There's a rusty iron bridge [00:32.68]Cross a shady ravine [00:36.07]Where the hard road ends and turns to clay [00:42.87]With a suitcase in his hand [00:46.64]There the lonesome boy stands [00:50.52]Gazing at the river sliding by beneath his feet [00:58.22]But the dark water springs [01:01.79]Through the black rocks and flows [01:05.32]Out of sight where the twisted laurel grows [01:25.88]Past the coal-tipple towns in the cold December rain [01:33.22]Into Charleston runs the New River train [01:39.83]Where the hillsides are brown [01:43.56]And the broad valley's stained [01:47.01]By a hundred thousand lives of work and pain [01:53.93]In a tar-paper shack out of town across the track [02:00.88]Stands an old used-up man [02:04.02]Trying to call something back [02:09.40]But his old memories stand like the city in the haze [02:16.57]And his days have flowed together like the rain [02:23.35]And the dark water springs [02:26.95]Through the black rocks and flows [02:30.58]Out of sight where the twisted laurel grows