"The Ride" - David Allan Coe
I was thumbing back from Montgomery with a guitar on my back,
When a stranger pulled up beside me in an antique Cadillac.
Well, he was dressed like 1950...half-drunk and hollow-eyed.
He said, "It's a long walk to Nashville, would you like a ride, son?"
He sat down in the front seat and turned on the radio,
And them sad old songs comin' outta them speakers was solid country gold.
Then I noticed the stranger was ghost-white pale when he asked me for a light.
And I knew there was somethin' strange about this ride.
He said, "Mister, can you make folk cry when you play and sing?
Have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues, can you bend them guitar strings?"
He said, "Boy, can you make folks feel what you feel inside?
'Cause if you're big-star bound, let me warn you it's a long, hard ride."
Well, he stopped just south of Nashville and he turned that car around.
He said, "This is where you get off, boy, 'cause I'm going back to Alabam'."
I stepped out of that ole Cadillac and I said, "Mister, many thanks."
He said, "You don't have to call me Mister, mister, the whole world called me
Hank."
He said, "Mister, can you make folk cry when you play and sing?
Have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues, can you bend them guitar strings?"
He said, "Boy, can you make folks feel what you feel inside?
'Cause if you're big-star bound, let me warn you it's a long, hard ride."
If you're big-star bound it's a long, hard ride.