C
He had a Blue Wing tattooed on his shoulder.  Well it might have been a
                  Dm
blue bird I don't know.
                                                  G
But he'd get stone drunk and talk about Alaska.  Salmon boats and forty-
      C
five below
C
He said he got that Blue Wing up in Walla Walla.  Where his cellmate there
                   Dm
was a little Willy John
Dm                                                          G
Willy he was once a great blues singer.  And Wing and Willy wrote him up a
 C
song:

[Chorus]
C                                      F            C
He said its dark in here…can't see the sky.   But I look at this Blue Wing
            G
and I close my eyes
              C               F                   C
Then I fly away, beyond these walls… Up above the clouds, where the rain
      G
don’t fall
             Am           G              Am             G
On a poor man’s dreams…  (yaa, On a poor man’s dreams,  yaa)

[Verse 2]
C
Well they paroled Blue Wing in August, 1963
                                      Dm
And he moved on pickin’ apples to the town of Wenatchee.
Dm
Winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park,
Dm        G                             C
On the south side of Seattle where the days grow gray and dark
       C
And he drank and he dreamt a vision of when the salmon still swam free
C                                      Dm
And his father’s father’s crossed that wide old Bering Sea.
Dm
And the land belonged to everyone, and there were old songs left to sing.
Dm        G                                   C
Now it’s narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing.

[Chorus]
C                                      F            C
He said its dark in here…can't see the sky.   But I look at this Blue Wing
            G
and I close my eyes
              C               F                   C
Then I fly away, beyond these walls… Up above the clouds, where the rain
      G
don’t fall
             Am           G              Am             G
On a poor man’s dreams…  (yaa, On a poor man’s dreams,  yaa)

[Verse 3]
C
Well he drank his way to L.A. and that’s where he died.  But no one knew his Christian name
              Dm
And there was no one there to cry.  But I dreamt there was a service.
 Dm
A preacher and an old pine box.
     G                                       C
And halfway through the sermon you know Blue Wing began to talk

[Chorus]
C                                      F            C
He said its dark in here…can't see the sky.   But I look at this Blue Wing
            G
and I close my eyes
              C               F                   C
Then I fly away, beyond these walls… Up above the clouds, where the rain
      G
don’t fall
             Am           G              Am             G
On a poor man’s dreams…  (yaa, On a poor man’s dreams,  yaa)