Dolly Parton - Carroll County Accident lyrics

(Bob Ferguson)

Carroll County's pointed out as kinda square

The biggest thing that happens is the county fair

And I guess that's why it seemes like such a big event

What we all call the Carroll County accident.

The wreck was on the highway just inside the line

Walter Browning lost his life and for a time

It seemed that Mary Ellen Jones would surely die

But she lived long enough for her to testify.

Now Walter Browning was a happy married man

And he wore a golden wedding ring upom his hand

But it was gone nobody knew just where it went

He'd lost it in the Carroll County accident.

Mary Ellen testified he flagged her down

Said he was sick and could she drive him into town

And no one even doubted what she said was true

Cause she was well respected in the county too.

Now I went down to see the wreck like all the rest

The bloody seats the broken glass the tangled mess

But I found something no one else had even seen

Behind the dash in Mary's crumpled up machine.

A little matchbox circled by a rubber band

And inside the ring from Walter Browning's hand

It took a while to figure out just what it meant

The truth about the Carroll County accident.

By dark of night I dropped the ring into a well

And I took a sacred oath that I would never tell

The secred of the Carroll County accident

Cause the county ordered Dad a marble monument.

I lost him in the Carroll County accident...