Tim O'Brien & Darrell Scott - The Hummingbird lyrics

A farmboy from Kentucky Hills Learned to play guitar for his backpoarch thrills Lean a ladderback chair on a windowsill And look out at the stars He must have got it up in Michigan He and his brothers were pickin then When he moved to Gary he took it with him That Gibson Hummingbird guitar Oh how that guitar would ring Dad would close his eyes and sing Silver Haired Daddy would always bring a tear to his eyes I was all of five years old My brother Don and a kid down the road We just did what we was told to get outside and play Someone wrapped it in a coat And we took it to the swamp just to see if it'd float But a Hummingbird is not a boat And it sank straight away When he got home that's when he heard What we'd done to that Hummingbird And he looked at me and never said a word Just went out back to see And there it was in all it's mess With the cattails and the redwing nests And there he laid it down to rest for all eternity One of these days you know what I'll do Get a Hummingbird guitar and a brother or two Underneath a Kentucky moon, give him back his childhood dream It won't make up for thirty-two years And it won't dry up a swamp of tears But it's better than a case of beer and a fifth of Jim Beam