What is “Rust Line” about?
"Rust Line" is a desert road song about leaving the town that buried the narrator's name and heading "down where the preachers don't go." An old man at a gas pump warns that the desert remembers longer than grace, and a final verse answers her mother's prediction that a girl like her gets nothing she hasn't fought for: she is still fighting. As the closing track and the longest on Gasoline Hymn, it ends the album with its narrator still on the move.
Rust Line lyrics
Sun came up like a blood red sign
Dust in my teeth, whiskey on my mind
Left the town where they buried my name
Nothing behind me worth staying tame
Every mile I burn is mine
Every scar a borrowed line
Every saint I used to pray
Left for dead along the way
And the rust line hums like a prayer in my blood
And the wire fence bleeds where the tall grass was
Down the rust line
Down where the preachers don't go
Down the rust line
I am the wolf nobody knows
Run me down, I won't fold
Burn it all before I grow old
Down the rust line
Down the rust line
Old man at the gas pump knew my face
Said the desert's got a longer memory than grace
I paid in silver, I paid in sweat
I paid in every promise I ain't broke yet
And the rust line hums like a prayer in my blood
And the wire fence bleeds where the tall grass was
Down the rust line
Down where the preachers don't go
Down the rust line
I am the wolf nobody knows
Run me down, I won't fold
Burn it all before I grow old
Down the rust line
Down the rust line
Mama said a girl like me
Don't get love, don't get peace
Don't get nothing she ain't fought for
Well, mama, I am fighting
And I am not done yet
Down the rust line
Down where the preachers don't go
Down the rust line
I am the wolf nobody knows
Run me down, I won't fold
Burn it all before I grow old
Down the rust line
Down the rust line