The Path of Least Resistance

from People, Places, Things by Butch Ross

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about

This is the oldest song on the record, written sometime between 1994 and 1997, then placed in a drawer and forgotten about. I found the words again in 2008, and by then enough time had passed that I had forgotten the stolen melody that I first hung these words on. I thought I had made this person up, turns out I had known them very well all along.

lyrics

Betty drags hard on a Camel Light,
while semi's cower in the snow.
May be the only time she sits tonight,
the winter brings them in in droves.
The snow falls hard, makes diamond skies
and brings the truckers off the road.
Sometimes the snow is like a secret shared,
but tonight, it's only snow.

Betty stands up and straightens Dacron thighs
and tries to rub her legs to life.
She clicks her gum and cocks her hip
and ladles gravy on some fries.
And from the kitchen takes the steaming plates
of bacon shanks and scrambled eggs,
and table flirts with the driftwood men
to earn to coins that her work begs.

On a TV show is someone she knows,
they shared a room when she lived here.
And when she packed and headed for the coast,
Betty said she's wait another year
So many men had told her then
she looked like Marilyn Monroe.
She thought she could have been an actress then,
but now she doesn't know.

The snow fall slows and the truckers go
out to their cabs to sleep it off.
She counts the tips to pay the rent she splits
on a road that dead ends like a job.
She's not the girl she used to be,
but who she is she cannot say.
‘round here the path of least resistance
doesn't intersect the interstate.

For all this time, she's doing fine.
(If you ask her that's what she'll say,
then she'll pick up a broken coffee cup
“'cuz she's got tables anyway”).

credits

from People, Places, Things, released June 13, 2014
Steve Brehm - Guitar
Jack Kirton - Pedal Steel
Adam Brodsky - Harmonica
Br - Bass, Slide Dulcimer, Vocals,

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Butch Ross Chattanooga, Tennessee

Chattanooga multi-instrumentalist and mountain dulcimer maestro Butch Ross has tackled everything from Radiohead to Bach and come away with a renewed appreciation for what the humble dulcimer is capable of. His music is born from his respect for its abilities, a respect born from the years he's spent prying apart its pieces and discovering new sounds where none existed before. ... more

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