The World’s Shortest — and Pluperfect Personnel Manual

By Michael Willard

Self-proclaimed music outlaw David Allan Coe, who I interviewed many years ago, sang a hit tune about pickup trucks, moms, trains, prison, and drunks and called it the perfect country and western song.

It went like this:

“Well, I was drunk the day my Mom got out of prison, And I went to pick her up in the rain,
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck,
She got run over by a damned old train.”