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The Road to Boquillas

from For Granted by Delphi Rising

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about

--I had this title, and the music, around for 20 years or so before I found a handle on writing the lyrics. I wanted to capture that epic ambiguity of Dylan songs like "Isis", and also wanted to get in a little content about an infamous roadtrip some of us made to Nuevo Laredo in the mid-80s. The names were changed to protect the guilty.

See the video here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W61uFEffrb8

lyrics

The Road to Boquillas
(© 2008 Walter Ehresman)

On May 27, we cinched up the bags and turned south in the hot Texas wind;
Juan Vasquez hung back and he said with a grin, “My old friend, so we do this again?”.
And we rode through the night, then laid up in the day in a gulch just this side of Pearsall;
And Mono sang love songs while deep in mescal, but somehow we avoided patrols.

I’d dreamed of betrayal and dark rain approaching and sensing erosion of time;
So I sent out the word to our far-scattered band for some work (with some fun on the side).
We’d all been here before, through the lies and the war, and the speeches of men steeped in gall;
And some of us think of the way things have gone, and then some of us don’t think at all.

Down at The Pagoda, the bottles lay stacked and the night was too close to the day;
Hidalgo and Boni came down from upstairs with no money and not much to say;
But another girl looked as tall Boni walked by, then she grabbed him where business is done;
So he traded his jacket with a wink and a smile and went back for more use of his gun.

When light rimmed the mountains, we crawled from the bar; Federales, they drove us from town;
And Mono and Vasquez, they dragged Willie out, with Hidalgo nowhere to be found.
And back at the border, we looked worse for wear, but the guard barely opened his eyes;
“We all come from Sweden,” I said with a grin, and that hombre, he waved us on by!

In Piedras Negras, we met with Morales to pick up the primer and cord;
Juan Vasquez worked out on Morales a bit so that he’d be a man of his word.
In the desert, their camp was sure not hard to find, with the lights and the dogs and the wire;
But Mono crept through like a smoke in the night, and the whole damn thing blossomed in fire!

Northwest through El Moral and on past Jimenez we followed the river through June;
Got soaked in the crossings, and dry in the walking, and laid low beneath too much moon.
They sent out the choppers, and doubled patrols, but there was not a trace to be found;
We feasted on catfish beside Amistad, and slept in mesquite far from towns.

Willie went out as the sun burned away, to scout out some difficult ground;
When he got back from Langtry, his face had gone crooked and we had to help our friend sit down;
The smell was all wrong, but he’d crept slowly on, and saw 26 shapes up ahead;
When he brought his light in, “Fortune Favors the Bold” was carved in the chests of the dead.

Our faces turned grim as we set out again, ‘cross the Sierra del Carmen so dry;
Now we rode through the open, ‘cause everyone knows that nobody comes through this alive;
The road to Boquillas was splattered in blood and the stares of men who don’t look back;
And though our own band felt we tread the right path, still the writing was faint on the map.

The bites and the stings may not bring the beast down, and a man can’t hold back the high tide;
But when history’s written, please hold back a page for the men who were willing to try.

credits

from For Granted, released February 1, 2009
Walter Ehresman: electric/acoustic 12-string guitar, classical guitar, palmas.

James Rader: drums, electronic percussion pads, palmas.

Vic Ramirez: vocals, 6-string acoustic & electric guitars, palmas.

Lee Vickers: bass, palmas.

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about

Walter Ehresman San Miguel De Allende, Mexico

Called "the quintessential Austin DIY artist" by famed local disc jockey Charlie Martin , Walter Ehresman was an eccentric presence in the Austin music scene from the '80s until his 2015 move to Mexico. A prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording artist...and a restless musical spirit, always looking for something new, expressed with fearlessly honest, socially-conscious lyrics. ... more

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