Dallas Adult Entertainment: A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas, Part 2: "Trinity"
Other Notable Songs: “Dallas,” Jimmie Dale Gilmore; “Dallas,” Alan Jackson; “Does Ft. Worth Ever Cross Your Mind,” George Strait; “Possum Kingdom,” the Toadies; “Walked from Dallas, Walked from Wichita Falls,” blues standard; “Deep Ellum Blues,” Bill Neely; “Fort Worth Blues,” Steve Earle; “Big D,” Broadway standard; “Dallas Alice,” Sir Douglas Quintet; “Dallas Days and Ft. Worth Nights,” Chris LeDoux; “Waco Moon,” Todd Snider; “Probably Corsicana,” Max Stalling; “Texarkana,” R.E.M.; “Lee Harvey Was a Friend of Mine,” Homer Henderson; “Palestine, Texas,” T-Bone Burnett.
Notes: “O Dallas you shine with an evil light,” wail the Silver Jews, “How did you turn a billion steers into buildings made of mirrors, and why am I drawn to you tonight?”
While Fort Worth is often defended in song, like Amarillo, Dallas is often bashed – perhaps even moreso. Famously, there’s Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s immortal “Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eye/ A rich man who tends to believe in his own lies,” while Jimmy Buffet advises that you “pass it by” because people in Dallas are callous. Less renowned today are blues songs by Johnny Winter and many a Depression-era singer bemoaning Dallas and Deep Ellum’s violence and prostitution.