Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2013 9:39:23 GMT -5
Here is another re-write of one of my old tunes. It is a true story about a double murder in my hometown back in the '90s. Two guys who worked at a hog farm called the Moriah Pork Palace killed the manager and another employee. One of the killers' wives also took part, acting as look-out. They dumped the bodies in a waste pit, grabbed one of the victims' pickup trucks and fled.
Their motive: They wanted to commit the "perfect crime."
This trio was no Leopold and Loeb. They stopped at a relative's place down in Oklahoma the next day and said they needed to get the truck repainted because they'd killed a couple of people. Those seeking to commit and get away with the perfect crime should avoid discussing their activities with those not involved in the criminal conspiracy. In this instance, the relatives called the cops. In jail, they told the cops about wanting to commit the perfect crime. They had spent all of four days planning it.
It was a pretty heinous crime, even by big-city standards, which Casey, Ill., definitely is not.
I didn't know those involved. My late father knew one of the victims pretty well and was pretty shaken up by his death. The brother of one of the killers was in my high school class (and since there were 96 in my class, you knew everyone) and I worked with their father one summer when I worked with the Illinois Department of Transportation. The whole family seemed developmentally challenged, and the co-defendants were no sharper.
A friend of mine at the paper in Casey sent me clips of the case. I went through and highlighted portions I thought noteworthy and wrote the original iteration of the song on the bus ride home one evening after work. Took 20 minutes. It was originally called "The Case of the Empty Stare." For whatever reason, I rarely ever perform the song live, though, and a song you don't play live is a song that might as well not have been written.
I was listening to Rodney Crowell's "Highway 17" the other day and it made me want to revisit this song and maybe give it a more unforgiving edge. I did some more research on the case and did some re-writing and so here is the new version, which is titled, "East of 49," and I like it a lot better than the original. And again, it is all true.
It might need a bridge or something.
South of my hometown of Casey, Illinois
‘neath January skies so gray
Folks talk of a crime so goddamn evil
It chills me to this day
Jerry Darling and Wesley Hall
Were good and honest men
Worked a hog farm east of 49
It is there they met their end
Two half-wits they worked with and one of their teen brides
Surprised them with a gun
Shot them dead and dumped the bodies
In a frozen retention pond
Stole Darling’s truck and 400 bucks
Made their flight from the law
They got caught tryin’ to repaint the pickup
The next day down in Oklahoma
Bonnie and the two Clydes told the cops
They planned the perfect crime
First and only smart thing they did was take a plea
that is what spared their lives
Saw their faces in the local paper
Eyes an empty stare
Only clue in offset black and white
Is that they just don’t care
Prairie wind cuts so cold
In winter it chaffs you raw
Leave you low and dyin’
In a field of stubble straw
East of Route 49 just south of town
‘neath January skies so gray
The late Jerry Darling and Wesley Hall
Are still talked of to this day
Their motive: They wanted to commit the "perfect crime."
This trio was no Leopold and Loeb. They stopped at a relative's place down in Oklahoma the next day and said they needed to get the truck repainted because they'd killed a couple of people. Those seeking to commit and get away with the perfect crime should avoid discussing their activities with those not involved in the criminal conspiracy. In this instance, the relatives called the cops. In jail, they told the cops about wanting to commit the perfect crime. They had spent all of four days planning it.
It was a pretty heinous crime, even by big-city standards, which Casey, Ill., definitely is not.
I didn't know those involved. My late father knew one of the victims pretty well and was pretty shaken up by his death. The brother of one of the killers was in my high school class (and since there were 96 in my class, you knew everyone) and I worked with their father one summer when I worked with the Illinois Department of Transportation. The whole family seemed developmentally challenged, and the co-defendants were no sharper.
A friend of mine at the paper in Casey sent me clips of the case. I went through and highlighted portions I thought noteworthy and wrote the original iteration of the song on the bus ride home one evening after work. Took 20 minutes. It was originally called "The Case of the Empty Stare." For whatever reason, I rarely ever perform the song live, though, and a song you don't play live is a song that might as well not have been written.
I was listening to Rodney Crowell's "Highway 17" the other day and it made me want to revisit this song and maybe give it a more unforgiving edge. I did some more research on the case and did some re-writing and so here is the new version, which is titled, "East of 49," and I like it a lot better than the original. And again, it is all true.
It might need a bridge or something.
South of my hometown of Casey, Illinois
‘neath January skies so gray
Folks talk of a crime so goddamn evil
It chills me to this day
Jerry Darling and Wesley Hall
Were good and honest men
Worked a hog farm east of 49
It is there they met their end
Two half-wits they worked with and one of their teen brides
Surprised them with a gun
Shot them dead and dumped the bodies
In a frozen retention pond
Stole Darling’s truck and 400 bucks
Made their flight from the law
They got caught tryin’ to repaint the pickup
The next day down in Oklahoma
Bonnie and the two Clydes told the cops
They planned the perfect crime
First and only smart thing they did was take a plea
that is what spared their lives
Saw their faces in the local paper
Eyes an empty stare
Only clue in offset black and white
Is that they just don’t care
Prairie wind cuts so cold
In winter it chaffs you raw
Leave you low and dyin’
In a field of stubble straw
East of Route 49 just south of town
‘neath January skies so gray
The late Jerry Darling and Wesley Hall
Are still talked of to this day
