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Since he first hitched a ride out of Lubbock, Texas, at the age of sixteen, singer-songwriter and Flatlanders band member Joe Ely has been a road warrior, traveling highways and back roads across America and Europe, playing music for "2 hours of ecstasy" out of "22 hours of misery." To stay sane on the road, Ely keeps a journal, penning verses that sometimes morph into songs, and other times remain "snapshots of what was flying by, just out of reach, so to savor at a later date when the wheels stop rolling, and the gears quit grinding, and the engines shut down." In Bonfire of Roadmaps, Ely takes readers on the road with him. Using verse passages from his road journals and his own drawings, Ely authentically re-creates the experience of a musician's life on tour, from the hard goodbyes at home, to the long hours on the road, to the exhilaration of a great live show, to the exhaustion after weeks of touring. Ely's road trips begin as he rides the rails to Manhattan in 1972 and continue up through recent concert tours with fellow Flatlanders Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. While acknowledging that "it is not the nature of a gypsy to look in the rearview mirror," Joe Ely nevertheless offers his many fans a revelatory look back over the roads he's traveled and the wisdom he's won from his experiences. And for "those who want to venture beyond the horizon just to see what is there... to those, I hope these accounts will give a glint of inspiration..."
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BONFIRE OF ROADMAPS THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK Brad and Michele Moore Roots Music Series Copyright © 2007 by Joe Ely All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2007 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/ bpermission.html The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper). Library of Congress Catalogingin-Publication Data Ely, Joe. Bonfire of roadmaps / Joe Ely. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Brad and Michele Moore roots music series) isbn-13: 978-0-292-71653-7 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-292-71653-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Ely, Joe—Travel. 2. Country musicians—Travel. 3. Voyages and travels— Poetry. 4. Lyric poetry. I. Title. ml420.e54a3 2007 782.421642092—dc22 [b] 2006023534 JOE ELY BONFIRE of ROADMAPS University of Texas Press Austin THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK CONTENTS 52 Cities till Christmas Iron Rhinos 9 43 Bonfire of Roadmaps 68 One Fuse of a Summer Lord of the Highway Gulf War One Jim Beam 110 116 131 Laredo East and West On the Run Again Afterword 90 140 175 193 7 THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK 52 CITIES TILL CHRISTMAS Damn, Damn, Damn I kick my self out the door Dragging my ball and chain The yard cats scatter and the buzzards take flight Crazy ol’ Joe is back on the road First stop London, God not again I haven’t been there since the Gulf War made pebbles From the proud stone banks of the Mesopotamia And sold the rights to cnn and bbc I take that back, I was there last week Seeing the city through Marie’s eyes of innocence Tug boats became swans, busses, red castles on wheels In a throng of storybook faces And through the eyes of Sharon Who saw the fabric, the lace and the burlap The scarves and shawls that drape the city And the blossoms on rusty security bars Am I becoming another weary gypsy Like those in Barcelona, drinking wine At Public monuments and Urinals Whose world has shriveled to a paper sack? 9 Jimmy called this morning W