Dustin Welch, Super Rooster Music (SESAC); Cary Ann Hearst, Noberta Jean Music (BMI)
Well you are sitting there biting your fingernails raw
With your eye on the door and your back to the wall
Nobody else knew, nobody else saw
Then your heart goes bang and betrays your trust
You are helplessly leaning on your nervous crutch
The blood in your eye already said too much
CHO:
Don’t tell em nothin’
No, don’t tell em nothin’
I say, don’t tell em nothin’
And they won’t have nothin’ on you
Man you gotta get yourself under control
The furnace is burning somewhere down below
And you can hear the turning of the gearbox echo
Cause they are watching through the windows, and they are shaking down your spine
They will step on you the second you trip that line
And catch you in their claws, it’s just a matter of time
Repeat CHO
You see that fish hanging on the wall
If he’d have kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t be there at all
Bear that in mind when the man comes to call
Repeat CHO (2x)
Dustin Welch: resonator guitar, vocals; Drew Smith: acoustic guitar, vocals; Kyle Ellison: electric guitar; Trisha Keefer: violin; Joe Beckham: electric bass; Joe Humel: drums
Me and my buddy Cory Younts, who now plays with the Old Crow Medicine Show, went down to Charleston, SC to record an album with our old friend Cary Ann Hearst, who we had a band with all through high school. Cary is an exceptional artist who I love dearly, and Charleston is one of my favorite places to visit. We wrote two songs for the record one day, one of which is titled ‘Dresden Snow,’ based on a novel by called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The second song was ‘Dont Tell Em Nothin’ which we cut but didn’t end up making the record. She had the lyrics for the chorus and the last verse after a story about a confidence man pulling the newbie aside telling him, “You see that fish hanging on the wall? If he’d have kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t be there at all.” I needed an opening line and I was sitting on her porch chewing my fingernails trying to come up with something. All of am sudden, I went “You’re sitting there biting your fingernails raw…” and the rest of the thing just wrote itself.