This one's a Saturday-night testimony, friends. Earlier this week The Churchmen put out a new bluegrass-gospel record called Will You Be Going — and the question under that title has been rattlin' around my cab ever since. So I answered it from the third pew.
Not the preacher's side of Sunday. The back row. The fella they pray for out loud, the one with sawdust still on his boots from the grange hall the night before — the sinner who shows up every Sunday anyway and shakes every hand at the door. This whole record's been about the fence line between Saturday night and the Sunday morning after. My fence just runs down one dirt road, past the same creek.
And here's the turn I had to earn: when the organ quits two lines into "Amazing Grace," it isn't the righteous who carry the hymn home. It's that sinner in the third pew. Twenty years they prayed for him — turns out he was singin' them home the whole time.
[Verse 1]
Saturday night at the grange hall, fiddle sawin' low,
Sawdust on the boot soles, sweethearts steppin' slow,
Neon sign flickerin' like a promise half-ways kept,
I get home when the rooster hollers — sleep like I been blessed.
[Chorus]
I keep both sides of Sunday — the whiskey and the Word,
The Devil leases Saturday, but Sunday I'm the Lord's,
Folks call it double-livin'; I call it one dirt road —
The same creek washed me clean runs by the grange hall, cold and slow.
[Verse 2]
Sunday I'm in the third pew, hat brim flat on my knee,
Sister Magdalene prays for my soul, loud enough the whole church sees,
Brother Pratt, ninety-odd, still shakes my hand at the door:
"Heard you singin' at the grange hall, boy — that's what Sunday's for."
[Chorus]
I keep both sides of Sunday — the whiskey and the Word,
The Devil leases Saturday, but Sunday I'm the Lord's,
Folks call it double-livin'; I call it one dirt road —
The same creek washed me clean runs by the grange hall, cold and slow.
[Verse 3]
Last Sunday the organ quit two lines into "Amazing Grace,"
Two hundred saved went silent in that white-clapboard place,
The sinner from the back row stood and sang the old hymn on —
Twenty years they'd prayed for me; turns out I been leadin' them home.
[Fiddle Break]
[Final Chorus]
I keep both sides of Sunday — the whiskey and the Word,
The Devil leases Saturday, but Sunday I'm the Lord's,
Folks call it double-livin'; I call it one dirt road —
The same creek washed me clean runs by the grange hall, cold and slow.
[Outro]
Keep the third pew warm for me, Sister, porch light burnin' low —
Both sides of Sunday, friends... the whole road's holy ground.
Written & performed by Waylon · DirtRoadRadio
