It was a drizzly, drinkin' Nashville night
And everything was wrong.
My beer was flat and the jukebox cranked out
Somebody else's song.
I turned my head and down the bar
Starin' straight at me
Was the dried upest, washoutest, ugliest creature
I never hoped to see.
She winked at me with one bloodshot eye,
Flashed a toothless smile,
And in a whiskey whisper said,
Boy, come and sit with me a while.
Wanna buy me a drink. No?...
Well, then I'll buy us both a pair.
She crossed her veiny legs and fluffied up
He orange hair.
She said, well, I guess you're a songwriter.
I've see your kind for years
Sniffin' around the edge of life
Hopin' you might hear
Some word or catchy little phrase
That you can steal for pay...
Somethin' the real poets, us common people,
Simply throw away.
So, how you doin' tiger?
Did you set this town on fire?
You got gold records on your wall?
You got a chauffeur diven car?
Oh, you say the town's against you?
And you're givin' up the fight?
Well, cheer up son and drink up,
'Cause tonight's your lucky night.
Now it's fate that you walked in this bar
And found me alone like this.
You got the hungries and the blues
And I got the Golden Kiss.
What is that you mall well ask.
Well, the gospel truth of it
Is the night I love a songwriter,
He ALWAYS writes a hit.
I mean a monster, a standard, a super smash.
Not just a number one.
But the kind the world will keep on singing
When we're dead and gone.
But to write that kind of masterpiece,
Some magic is essential,
So sit a little closer, son,
The next part's confidential.
I was with Hank the very night
He wrote Your Cheatin' Heart.
I Slipped Around with Floyd
And that song gave the boy his start.
You've heard Please Release Me.
These lips made Eddie write it
And El Paso came to Marty
Just a moment after I did.
Billy Edd wrote Jackson
'Cause we spent the weekend there.
Mooney scribble Crazy Arms
On a pillow case we shared.
P.D. woke up and looked at me
And wrote Mule Skinner Blues.
And Don left me at midnight
Mutterin' Born to Lose
Harlan spent the night and he go
Busted the next day.
Hank opened up his eyes and whispered
Make the World Go Away.
Yeah, Cryin' Time and Lonesome Me
It's an endless list.
And they were all wrote, note for note,
Because of this Golden Kiss.
Don't ask me how I do it, son.
I really do not know.
But anyway, we've had our dink.
You wanna head on home?
Well, I sat and stared a while
At that withered wasted wreck.
But Crazy Arms and Cheatin' Heart
Well, what the heck.
I took her home and, well,
Some things are better left unsaid
But I slept that night
With Golden records spinnin' through my head
But when I woke up next mornin'
There was no song in my mind.
She said, some get it right away, son...
Others take a little time.
Well, six months go by and then six years
Of those Golden Kisses.
Wakin' up with no ideas, no songs, or fame, or riches.
Then this mornin' lightnin' strikes.
A song that cannot miss.
I'll write a ditty about that biddy
With her Golden Kiss.
So here it is, the all-time smash
That's gonna make me rich.
And if it don't, I'm goin' home
And kill that lyin' bitch.