Happy Birthday, Hank Williams

[onager]

Born in Mount Olive West, Alabama, September 17th, 1923.

Died somewhere on the road of alcohol, morphine-based patent medicine and general neglect on New Year's Day 1953. He was 29 years old.

He had just released the last single recorded in his lifetime: I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

Always ahead of his time, Hank Williams wrote a perfect song for the self-righteous hypocrites of our modern Religious Reich:

A tongue can accuse and carry bad news
The seeds of distrust, it will sow
But unless you've made no mistakes in your life
Be careful of stones that you throw.

(SPOKEN)
A neighbor was passing my garden one time,
She stopped and I knew right away
It was gossip, not flowers, she had on her mind
And this is what I heard my neighbor say:

"That bad girl down the street, she should be run from our midst!
Yes, she drinks and she talks quite a lot.
And she knows not to speak to my child or me!"
My neighbor then smiled, and I thought:

A tongue can accuse and carry bad news
The seeds of distrust, it will sow
But unless you've made no mistakes in your life
Be careful of stones that you throw.

(SPOKEN)
A car speeded by and we heard the screaming of brakes
A sound that made my blood run chill
And my neighbor's only child had been pulled from the path
And saved by a girl lying still.

The child was unhurt and my neighbor cried out:
"Oh! who was that brave girl so sweet?"
I covered the crushed, broken body and said:
"That's the bad girl who lived down the street."

A tongue can accuse and carry bad news
The seeds of distrust, it will sow
But unless you've made no mistakes in your life
Be careful of stones that you throw.

[RagingInMiami]

1. A true artist

[Zomby Woof]

2. Along with Woody Guthrie or Jimmie Rodgers

On the Mount Rushmore of American Songwriters. :thumbsup:

[mitchum]

3. Greatest songwriter this country has every produced...

and all of the other contenders already know that. And have no problem with that.

[uncle ray]

4. ahh, so THAT'S why i grabbed the Hank singles set before i left the house!