Sportswriter: Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News

you just don't realize how good death is.

 

Well I don't wear no Stetson
But I'm willin' to bet, son
That I'm just as Texan as you are
'Cause there's a girl in her barefeet
Sleepin' in the back seat
And that trunk is full of Pearl…and Lone Star
(chorus)
'Cause I'm panhandlin'
Man handlin'
Post holin'
High rollin'
Dust Bowlin'…Daddy
And I ain't got no blood veins
I just got them four lanes
Of hard…Amarillo Highway
Yeah
And closest I'll ever get to heaven
Is makin' speed up ol' 87
On that hard-ass…Amarillo Highway

 

This is a Terry Allen song ...

 

No, it's a Maines Brothers song. Longtime Lubbock band that made that drive many times for gigs up north. One of the brothers has a little girl named Natalie.

 

US 87 is a great highway, and continues to be if you follow it up north past Amarillo into NM and then CO. There's plenty of beautiful country up that way.

 

pressboxer, is that a country or bluesy song? i wanna listen to it, maybe.

 

CUUUuuuUUUNNN--Tree (Western Swing, really)

 

Hmm, I might be able to handle that. Maybe.

 

Uh, no. It's a Terry Allen song. Words and music by Terry Allen, copyright 1979. If the Maines Brothers performed it, they either covered it or plagiarized it. See the following off the Maines Brothers' official website:

"The band's recording of Terry Allen's "Amarillo Highway" was getting substantial regional airplay and became the song that defined the MBB style of West Texas Music."

And Angola! ... grab the Robert Earl Keen (live No. 2 dinner) version of this song off itunes. To me, it's the definitive version.

 

Since Death already has the supermodel body type, I guess you can add blond hair and blue eyes and maybe...

 

My dad used to make that drive all the time when he'd take his annual hunting expedition to Colorado (he lives in Houston). He had the classic line about that part of the country: "Ain't much out there and there's a whole lot of it."