HAT CHECK GIRL – JESSE & FRANK

Annie Gallup: vocal, asher lap steel, clogging;
Peter Gallway: harmony vocal, fender telecaster guitar,
custom mark dann bass, keyboard, programming
Recorded, mixed and produced by Peter Gallway & Annie Gallup at
Gallway Bay Music, Santa Barbara, CA
(P) & (C) Gallway Bay Music 2012
www.hatcheckgirl.net

“Jesse and Frank are fictional characters, but we hear stories like theirs in our town every day during this desperate chapter of the world - dependable, hardworking people whose livelihood has vanished, falling through the cracks of society with no place to turn.”

Jesse and Frank owed it all to the bank
You could say they were way under water
Out in San Joaquin, Jesse kept the house clean
Looked after two sons and a daughter
While Frank worked hard at the lumber yard
Until the lumber yard went under

Frank searched every day but there was no way
They could live on the wage he was offered
Field workers say all the help comes from way
Down south of the border
Five mouths to feed, kids growing like weeds
Every day needing things he could not buy them

Frank looked for a living up at Folsom prison
But the prison was laying off guards
Behind watch tower spires, and the razor wires
He felt for the men in the yards
Then with spirits sunk low, and nowhere to go
Frank let the bank take the keys to the house

Jesse and Frank owed it all to the bank
And when the hard rain came
There was just the sky to blame
And when you have no home
There’s just the sky above your head
And the cold hard clay for your bed

Frank, how can you stand to hold out your hand
You were the one who was steady and strong
The one everybody could turn to
And you’ve never done anything wrong

Now Jesse’s routine keeps a stranger’s house clean
And she watches another man’s children
While her own kids stray on the street each day
Take shelter in derelict buildings
And Frank does time in the welfare lines
Searching for something that isn’t there

He looks in the mirror but he can’t recognize
The man washing up in the Texaco stall
And he wonders how he’s going to stop going under
How can he end this freefall?
And maybe the men have it better in Folsom
On the other side of the wall

Jesse and Frank owed it all to the bank
And when the hard rain came
There was just the sky to blame
And when you have no home
There’s just the sky above your head
And the cold hard clay for your bed
The cold hard clay for your bed
The cold hard clay for your bed

(Annie Gallup & Peter Gallway, Flyaway Hair & Gallway Bay Music, ASCAP)