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Waylon Jennings Live!

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Waylon Jennings Live!

Album

In League With Dragons

Released

April 26, 2019

Length

3:15

Previous Track

"Going Invisible 2"

Next Track

"Cadaver Sniffing Dog"

Waylon Jennings Live! is the ninth song on In League with Dragons.

Lyrics[]

Drunk at the Meskwaki casino 
Right where God intended me to be 
Looking up at the one man in this room 
Who's handled more cocaine than me 

Think back on the good times just an hour or so ago 
Before I got myself this drunk 
When the valet parked my rented Mitsubishi 
With a beat up old brown suitcase in the trunk 

Full of firearms and flash drives 
Full of passports 
And international money orders 
For just in case I make it cross the border 

Get a postcard from the gift shop 
Let my family know I'm doing fine 
Looking up at a map up on the ceiling 
To find the place where we all meet up further on down the line 

Head back to my table 
Get another scotch and soda for the road 
The band on stage is really working up a head of steam 
Close my eyes and lean my head back, dream a little dream 

Full of firearms and flash drives 
Full of passports 
And international money orders 
For just in case I make it cross the border

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • "I was on my way to a reading in Chapel Hill, I live next door in Durham, and listening to Honky Tonk Heroes by Waylon Jennings, and as you do you start to think about how you might try to write a fake Waylon Jennings song." -- 2018-05-27 - Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago, IL
  • "Well here’s the thing. Old wizards and old athletes are the same. They were once magic. They once were everyone’s hero and could do anything. And they tend to probably get better at understanding their craft – we all do, no matter how you grow as an artist, you probably get what you do better, for better and worse, because that also means then you see where you’re going, right, and you have to make choices about that. But when athletes, you know, they sacrifice their entire bodies to what they do. So do wizards. And so there’s actually three characters on the record who are sort of like, real world ex-wizards, there’s Doc Gooden, and there’s Ozzy Osbourne, who is like my personal totemic wizard, and then there’s the guy in a song called ‘Waylon Jennings Live!’ who’s an arms dealer watching a Waylon Jennings concert in central Iowa, getting ready to get in his car and try and make it to the Mexican border." -- 2019-01-28 - Live from Wizards of the Coast HQ - Renton, WA
  • "Like, 'Waylon Jennings Live!' I don't think that had a title until it was through the chorus, and then I was like, well it's funnier to call this 'Waylon Jennings Live!' than to call it 'Firearms and Flashdrives.'" -- I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats Ep. 213, "Clemency for the Wizard King"
  • "It's kind of a foot-stompin', kind of a, kind of a campfire thing, you know, kind of a campfire but, but with drugs, kind of, you know, kind of a drugged-out, kind of a drugged out the-cops-will-never-find-us-here campfire kind of situation. It's about a guy, it's about a guy who has gone to Iowa because he figures 'they're not going to find me in Iowa.' But friends, I mean to tell you, once your pursuers are the federales, they will find you. They will find you in Minnesota. They will find you in Nebraska. They will find you in Iowa. This is called 'Waylon Jennings Live!'" -- 2021-09-17 - Tower Theatre - Oklahoma City, OK
  • "My favorite kinda casino is the one where the gambling isn't any fun at all. Those are the ones where you can really get some poetry out of it. Y'know, you can go to Vegas- you can feel it, it's like, you- you're gonna throw some money at something, because everybody's having a good time. But if you go to Tama, Iowa, and you go to the casino, it's really, there's not that many people there. And they don't have any craps tables, which is the best game in the casino, and- well it is the best, it's the only one where you could- don't get me started. It's a lotta keno, you know, a lot of waiting to see where the ping-pong ball with your number on it comes up, that's a sucker game, man. And it's like- and so you know everybody in there is as sad as you, it's a whole sadness kinda situation. So- that's why The Mountain Goats like that kind of situation." --2023-02-15 - Mickey's Black Box - Lititz, PA

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]


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