Smoke In The Holler

Verse 1
There’s smoke in the holler tonight
Rising slow through the trees
Not the sweet kind that carries corn
But something heavier on the breeze

No copper pot, no mash run
No jars lined up to cool
Just pinewood stacked by the river bend
And a man who broke a rule

Pre-Chorus
Dogs start barking up on Miller’s ridge
Blue lights cut through black
Sheriff thinks he smells a still
But he’s chasing the wrong track

Chorus (Choir Singing)
There’s smoke in the holler
But it ain’t from a moonshine brew
It’s sweat and sin and gasoline
And something I had to do
Let the law come climbing
Let him curse my name
There’s smoke in the holler
Burning more than cane

Verse 2
Mama thinks I’m cooking shine
Like Daddy used to make
She don’t ask what’s in that fire
Or why my hands still shake

I dug that pit at daylight
Where the river mud runs thin
Some debts don’t fit in ledger books
And some sins don’t wash off skin

Bridge
Sheriff walks that riverbank
Boot heels in the ash
Says he smells something bitter
That it don’t smell like moonshine mash

He kicks through charred pine splinters
Finds nothing he can hold
Fire don’t leave a witness
And the Sheriffs trail runs cold

Final Verse (Reveal)
That fire wasn’t for whiskey
Up there on that peak
That brazen man stopped breathing
Long before he reached that creek

He thought the ridge would hide him
He thought he could confide
He thought I wouldn’t find him
Until that night he died

Final Chorus (Choir Singing)
There’s smoke in the holler
Rising quiet through the pines
Let the sheriff hunt for moonshine
He won’t find a single sign
When the morning air turns bitter
And the embers fell still
There’s smoke in the holler
And no one left to tell

Gritty southern outlaw country, ominous, intensity building throughout