Charles Priest

Back home in a small town

(chorus)
Back home in a small town
Both my feet planted on the ground
If I never sing on the Opry stage
I can say I know my place
Back home in a small town

I heard it said that you can chase your dreams
But it's harder than it seems
A few songs and an old guitar
Never got me very far

I learned quick that money talks
And money doesn't care at all
I'll never play a song on TV
But back home I can always be

(chorus)

I never should have traded away those Tennessee country nights
I've got get to back where the sky is blue and the grass is green

Three Quarter Time

If I wrote a song in three quarter time
What would I write about, what would I rhyme
What would I leave out on that missing fourth beat
What would I say that's important to me?

Would I write about family, farming and faith,
Pickup trucks and sunsets at my old homeplace,
Hard work and mommas, or finding true love,
How to be a good neighbor and the Lord up above?
 

(chorus)
I'd write about bacon
I really like bacon
I like bacon with eggs and biscuits and gravy
I wake up each morning and find that I'm craving bacon
I really like bacon
I didn't think I could find any words to rhyme with bacon

I hardens my arteries, clogs up my pores
They raise it on farms and we buy it in stores
I can't say I'll ever like spinach or kale
When I go out shopping I'm looking for sales on bacon

Coconut Tree

He came from the land of the air conditioned office
Tried to unwind with a week at the beach
Tried every single organized activity
He never found what was still out of reach

Island man said "boy you're wasting your time
Sitting in the sunshine trying to bake
All of your big city troubles away.
Rust gonna get what the wind don't take

(chorus)
The tropical sun's made for lying in the shade
Don't worry 'bout tomorrow. Just live for today.
Stop trying to do and just try to be
And don't fall asleep beneath a coconut tree

Never kiss a barracuda or try to hug a shark
Try to be happy right where you are
But when you get back to that air conditioned office
Try to remember what I said about all this

The River

I drove by where my daddy lies on the way to work today
If we talked a while I know he'd small at all I had to say
I'd tell him I've been married now for almost thirty years
We've been gone but we're back home. Momma really needs us here.

(chorus)
The river it keeps moving on
Back to the place where I belong
The water stills my soul
I have found where I grow old

Your granddaughter finished college, got herself the perfect job
If you saw her now, you'd be proud of how that girl turned out
Every morning I clock in at the place you used to work
It just seems right that I work there but you were first

(chorus)

Oh the Things I've Seen

I used to be an old oak tree
When the children of the Cherokee
Ran and laughed and  played beneath my shade
I remember when the soldiers came 
This nation chose the path of shame
The people of these hills were hauled away

A settler came and cut me down
Carried my bones into town
And build his cabin there beside the way
He raised a family, settled down
Planted his corn in the ground
Walked these boards until his dying day

(chorus)
Oh the things I've seen
Happening right here in front of me
Some were nightmares and some were dreams
Oh the things I've seen

I saw the lines of blue and gray
Proudly marching on their way
To battlefields for glory, wealth and fame
I saw them trudging back again
Their foolish hope for glory dimmed
The songs they sang could never mask the pain

Now the people pass me by
They stop and ask me why
I keep my silent watch along the way
With time and progress marching on
I keep my vigil all alone
Ask my story, this is what I'll say

Back  Out on the Road

Every place that I have been has taken part of me
Sometimes bad but mostly good as far as I can see
Every time I have left behind more than I'll ever know
Another hole within my soul makes me want to go

(chorus)
Back out on the road to the next town down the line
Back out on the road. See what else we can find

Sights and sounds they bring to mind a place a place I'd like to be
Old faces and older places that mean so much to me
We can go back one more time before we get too old
One day soon before too long we'll find our time to go

Clifty 1884

Thomas Franklin mined for coal in the side of Bon Air mountain
With a candle to fight the shadows and a shovel in his hand
Betty Evans cooked the food for the miners every morning
Until the day that Thomas gave Betty a wedding band

The company man came by and said “you've got to find another job.”
“Those were the rules” that was all he had to say
Betty smiled at Thomas and said “what do you want to do”
Thomas grinned back and Betty heard him say

(chorus)
Out past Rocky River maybe we can buy a piece of land
Raise our corn and find some piece of mind
We can walk down this mountain, down below the Wildcat Falls
And leave the company and leave Clifty far behind

Thomas and Betty named their second born son after Robert E. Lee
And a page in the family Bible tells the rest
How he had a son named Herman who had a son named Emmett Priest
Who passed Thomas Franklin's last name down to me

(chorus)

The Devil I Thought I Knew

Sunlight moves slow across this place
The only window shows me the same old face
Sometimes I think about where I could have been
I look to the Lord for the strength to begin again

There's days I couldn't even tell you if the rain falls down
The lightning strikes or the thunder sounds
I long for the day when I see your face again
And bring an end to this hell I'm in

(chorus)
The devil I thought I knew
Knew so much more about me
Told me lies right to my eyes
Even though I could see
Through this time away from you 
I've learned this to be true
Better this hell I know
Than the devil I thought I knew

Today I saw the sunshine for the first time
Since that devil tried to take my life
Todays the day when I see your face again
And bring an end to this hell that I've been in

The devil I thought I knew
He still tries to get me
Tells me lies right to my eyes
I was blind but now I see
Through this time away from you 
I've learned this to be true
Better this hell I know
Than the devil I thought I knew