The Middle of Nowhere - Tony Joe White

Clothes are on the line

Cover on the wind

Had a drink it must be time

Momma sits and rest

It’s a summer in the middle of nowhere

Reality is a heat

And all we have and all we know is what’s within our reach

And I wonder at the crossroads

Where the big yellow bus picks up the children

Takes em all down the road

I look at the mama and she knows I really want to go

She says Joe it’s best if you stay here with us

You’re thirty years old and there ain’t no place for you on that bus

But I can ride on the tailgate of my daddy’s truck

He would take me to the river

I could hear the boys cutting up

Said I hey Joe where you been

The water’s fine jump on in

Hey Joe make me smile

I could forget about the crossroads for a while

Purple Martins came every year without felt

Then turned left and the old bird box

And the babies they went quietly in their shell

Til the mama breaks them open and they see the sky

And it don’t take long and there’s magic where they fly

Still I wonder about the crossroads

Where the ice truck makes it stop

Drops off the blocks of ice

And the people wrap it up in bags of sawdust close it up real tight

Carry it home

Like blocks of gold

Man I wonder about the crossroads

Crossroads

In the middle of nowhere