Daddy's Ballad

from Choice Doyce: The Best of Doyce Whisanant by Doyce Whisanant & Macular Degenerates

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lyrics

He wore some faded overhauls
and sideburns down to here.
He carried a broken pocket watch
and a can of Billy Beer.
He sounded like a cross between
Junior Samples and Walter Brennan.
The world despised his backwardness
yet still he kept on grinnin'.

He had a real bad mean streak--
at times, I guess we all do.
But just when life was too much to swallow,
he'd bite him off another chew.
One Christmas we'd been out shopping,
the winter that Daddy met Jean.
I watched 'em flirtin' on the sawdust lot,
ol' Daddy and the Swap Meet Queen.
He th'owed them keys across to me,
“Tell ye Mama 'n'em to go to Hell!”
I always done what my Daddy said,
and all Mama said was, “...well...”

Spit-cup Daddy, I can see him now--
no explanations and no excuse.
And all he left was a beat-up truck
and a trail of tobacco juice.
And every time my preacher asks,
“Brother, are you ready?”
I thank the Lord that my ol' man
was my ol' spit-cup Daddy.

Every now and then I'll hear a rumor
and I'll wonder how he's getting on.
I'll glance through photos he loved to take,
no matter o' what I's sitting on.
Sometimes I hear his voice inside
when the road ahead looks grim.
I'll git that ol' ignorant gleam in my eye
and spit in memory of him.

Spit-cup Daddy, I can hear him now
with his low, maniacal laughter.
Maybe he'll git him a Holy Grail
for a spittoon in the hereafter.
And every time the waitress asks me,
“Darlin', are you ready?”
I just grin at her and kinda wink,
just like my spit-cup Daddy!