Farewell to Boise and Hannah

[LCK]

I may have been working on this song a while back. Anyway, I kinda think it's finished now.

 

Farewell to Boise and Hannah

 

1. He parked in the rain down on Main Street

in the light of the neon bars

where he made his farewell to sweet Hannah

on a night without any stars.

When he asked if she’d like to come with him

she sighed, “Maybe one of these days.”

For although she had a free spirit

she’d been left with two daughters to raise.

 

’Cross the Idaho-Oregon border

his dog Hank in the passenger seat,

it was farewell to Boise and Hannah,

life without her, Hank, won’t be as sweet.

 

2. He’d sent tapes out to Portland and Ashland,

to Medford and Salem and Bend.

He got offered a gig in Corvallis,

weekday evenings from six until ten.

He and Hank settled into the city—

just a small university town,

Maybe Hannah might come for a visit

and someday they’d all settle down.

 

He and Hank had traveled high desert,

crossed mountains and rivers and streams.

Now it’s farewell to Boise and Hannah,

and hello to his radio dreams.

 

3. Ah, but AM was losing its listeners,

less music, more traffic and news.

So to Ely then Orem then Flagstaff,

the itinerant disc-jockey blues.

Sometimes late at night she’d still call him

and ask him to play her a song.

Though she’s too far away to have heard them

he’s played songs for her all along.

 

He and Hank crossed the wide Colorado,

now both with some grey in their hair,

and it’s farewell to Hannah’s sweet shadow,

and hello to that radio station,

perhaps their last destination,

the next small-town radio station

up ahead somewhere.

 

Words & Music © 2014 by Lee Charles Kelley

West Sixty Ninth Street (ASCAP)

 

[Delmont]

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