Silicon Palms

Tag: Shelley Day

  • The Angel from Mongomery

    The Angel from Mongomery

    The Angel from Montgomery has an effect on me like no other song, I am crying as I write these words. My sister Shelley once stole the show at an open mike singing contest in a really hard bar in a little red-neck town called Peachland. Shelley can bring grown men to tears, with this incredible song.

    Over my lifetime nothing has captivated my spirit like great women blues singers, all my life I would gravitate towards great female vocals where it meets rock and roll, right at the cross roads to the blues. Janis Joplin started my addiction and I never quit. Saw Annie Lennox live in Adelaide in my twenties and that fuelled the fire. Nobody can rock quite as soulfully as the great women singers of rock legend.

    Shelley, my sister, was the purpose of this tribute and without a doubt she can slam-dunk this famous John Prine song which Bonnie Raitt made into a brand, then Susan Tedeschi ran with the ball, having the most brilliant blues-band in modern history. All of them rock our world with this song but I chose Bonnie Bishop to share here: With all the love in my heart, to women who rock this world.

    The Angel from Mongomery by Bonnie Bishop

    John Prine wrote “Angel from Montgomery” after a friend suggested writing “another song about old people,” referring to Prine’s song “Hello in There.” Although Prine had “said everything I wanted to [about seniors] in ‘Hello in There’” he was intrigued by the idea of “a song about a middle-aged woman who feels older than she is…[Eventually] I had this really vivid picture of this woman standing over the dishwater with soap in her hands…She wanted to get out of her house and her marriage and everything. She just wanted an angel to come to take her away from all this.”

    Prine believes he likely was drawn to Montgomery as the song’s setting by virtue of being a fan of Hank Williams, who had ties to that city. “

    Angel from Montgomery” is a concert staple of Hank Williams’ granddaughter Holly Williams.

    “Angel From Montgomery”
    (by John Prine)

    I am an old woman
    Named after my mother
    My old man is another
    Child that’s grown old

    If dreams were thunder
    And lightning was desire
    This old house woulda burnt down
    A long time ago

    Make me an angel
    That flies from Montgomery
    Make me a poster
    Of an old rodeo
    Just give me one thing
    That I can hold on to
    To believe in this livin’
    Is just a hard way to go

    When I was a young girl
    Well I had me a cowboy
    He weren’t much to look at
    Just a free ramblin’ man
    But that was a long time
    And no matter how I tried
    Those years just flow by
    Like a broken down dam

    Make me an angel
    That flies from Montgomery
    Make me a poster
    Of an old rodeo
    Just give me one thing
    That I can hold on to
    To believe in this livin’
    Is just a hard way to go

    There’s flies in the kitchen
    I can hear them there buzzin’
    And I ain’t done nothin’ since I woke up today
    But how the hell can a person
    Go to work in the mornin’
    And come home in the evenin’
    And have nothin’ to say

    Make me an angel
    That flies from Montgomery
    Make me a poster
    Of an old rodeo
    Just give me one thing
    That I can hold on to
    To believe in this livin’
    Is just a hard way to go

    Recorded versions of Angel From Montgomery