They're selling drinks faster than they can pour them this week — "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" is still climbing the Shazam country chart, and half the Top 10 is about a bar or a road leading to one. But back in the real world, the actual honky-tonks on Nashville's Broadway are fighting property-tax bills that could close them for good. The Second Fiddle already went dark on New Year's Day. Somewhere along the way, the idea of the honky-tonk got rich while the honky-tonks themselves got evicted.
That didn't sit right with me, so tonight's song swings back.
This one's for the last real room on the block — for old Hank pouring rye with sawdust in his silver hair, for Lester's fiddle, for every couple two-stepping through sawdust on a Friday night while a fella in a grey suit measures the parking lot. It's a celebration, not a funeral. Because a honky-tonk ain't four walls, friends. It's wherever the fiddle gets to go. Turn it up and tip the jar.
[Verse 1]
The Wagon Wheel's a souvenir shop, the Palomino's a gravel lot
Half the neon up and down this street went dark when the tax man called the shot
But past the bail bonds office there's a door with the paint peeled thin
And Lester's got the fiddle rosined up — mama, let the night begin
[Chorus]
Pour it tall and tip the jar, let the piano man have his say
'Cause we ain't closed yet, no we ain't closed yet, long as these floorboards swing this way
Two-step your baby through the sawdust, raise a toast to what ain't gone
We ain't closed yet, honey, we ain't closed yet — and Friday night rolls on
[Verse 2]
There's a fella in a grey suit measuring the parking lot
Figuring what a dance floor's worth to the square foot, like as not
But he's counting square feet, mister, and this floor don't count in feet
It counts in wedding rings and birthday songs and eight hundred boots to the beat
[Chorus]
Pour it tall and tip the jar, let the piano man have his say
'Cause we ain't closed yet, no we ain't closed yet, long as these floorboards swing this way
Two-step your baby through the sawdust, raise a toast to what ain't gone
We ain't closed yet, honey, we ain't closed yet — and Friday night rolls on
[Fiddle Break]
[Verse 3]
Now old Hank could've sold in April, enough to winter anywhere
But Friday finds him pouring rye with sawdust in his silver hair
And if the bulldozers come, well, let 'em come — we'll load the band and go
'Cause a honky-tonk ain't four walls, it's wherever the fiddle gets to go
[Chorus]
Pour it tall and tip the jar, let the piano man have his say
'Cause we ain't closed yet, no we ain't closed yet, long as these floorboards swing this way
Two-step your baby through the sawdust, raise a toast to what ain't gone
We ain't closed yet, honey, we ain't closed yet — long as the music's playing on
[Spoken Outro]
Two o'clock, and Lester's bow arm finally calls it. Hank sweeps up, chairs on the tables, one bulb still burning over the door.
Folks ask him what that light's for, and he just grins: "It means we'll be here Friday."
Written & performed by Waylon · DirtRoadRadio
