It was a cliché, smokey country bar When she crooned into my memory As I heard a hint of her old accent From a bygone Virginia residence Faint and fading but not all gone In the minstrel’s spell she cast in her song
Life put her on that stage for me And I begged for her gaze to be on me To end the long, cold, lonely nights And as Etta said, at last, this night She caught my unceasing, tense stare And right then, she sang only to me