Beauty At The Back Door

There's a screened-in porch in the front but not the back
The back's just got a door and a crepe myrtle bush
And a little ole dried up garden and some woods way on the back
There's a hickory nut tree that covers the whole roof

Sounds like hand grenades hittin' the tin roof all the time
There's an old wood floor that's bowed up just about everywhere
It's got a thin coat of white stuff on it even though
It's a dark wood floor

There's a washing machine right outside the back door
It's a ringer washer, the kind they don't make anymore
I got my hand caught in it several times
And usually got my ass whipped for it

Even though I's the one that got hurt
There's a snake stick, that's what they called it anyway
By the back door because if you
Wanted to go outside you'd usually need it

Everything's green most of the time except in winter
When you could see the highway, it's not a leaf on the trees
There's an old rock, well, where we clean the squirrels
I used to sit out by that and watch the carbor girl come down the road

She didn't have but one dress and that's all she needed
It was kinda red and kinda gray and kinda tore up and kinda perfect
She's built like a brick shit-house
She had polish on her toenails that only went about halfway down

?Cause they was always tore up
She used to walk across the side yard, right by the well
And go stand by the crepe myrtle bush
And look in the screen door

She'd usually stand there for about ten minutes
And back then I wasn't sure what she wanted
These days I understand, if I'd a known then what I know now
Well, my life might well have been pretty different

Well, she was about eight or nine years older than I was when I first
Started school I knew there was somethin'
There was somethin' about the south and the air was a lot heavier
And it seems like the women sweat even when they're not

I don't know if you've ever heard rain on a tin roof or not
But it's kinda tailor made for love
And day I was in the house and I was lookin' back
Toward the back screen door and there she was

Standin' there for ten minutes
The only thing different on this day is
That my daddy went back there and talked to her
And told her she looked pretty

I thought the same thing but there was somethin' 'bout the look
In his eye was a little different than the one I'd had in mine
And he walked outside and they went past the crepe myrtle bush
And past the well and out into the green

And I walked to the back door and I watched for a long time
And all I could see was trees after a time, I really couldn't see
They came back out and my daddy was walkin' way ahead of her
And she was kinda following, almost runnin'

He acted like he didn't want to have anything to do with her
And I was wondering why, why would you be so happy going in
And so down coming out, I don't know

That's what I thought then
He didn't act like she's so pretty anymore
Now I think I get it
I think I've got it several times