LINE ITEM 0006 · FY2003

Still Flying

2003 · Cost-Plus Records · 4 tracks

Final album. The A-10 was still flying when this was recorded. Webb considered this the correct note to end on.

1. 01Still Flying3:24
   Lyrics (as filed)

   Six o'clock over Craycroft Road
   two of them climbing out
   gear coming up
   that high thin whine
   you feel it in your teeth
   before you look
   
   Since before the war
   they said that it was finished
   
   Still flying
   still flying
   they wrote it off in pencil
   and it is still flying
   
   Four of us and a van
   a bar two miles from the gate
   three hundred nights
   every year somebody said
   last year for the Warthog
   every year it was not
   
   Still flying
   still flying
   they wrote it off in pencil
   and it is still flying
   
   This is the last record
   I am putting down the microphone
   to write to Washington
   the band stops here
   it never needed us
   to keep going
   
   We are retiring
   it is not
   still flying
   still flying
   
   Gear up

2. 02Outlived the Obituary3:55
3. 03One Case of Beer4:50
   Lyrics (as filed)

   Linda let us load in early
   and counted the house at the door,
   and the door matched the register
   every night for twelve years.
   Tony fixed the van in a lot behind the bar
   with a light held in his teeth.
   
   Elaine counted us in for twelve years
   and was never late but the once,
   and the once is in a document
   filed under unforeseeable.
   
   One case of beer
   and everyone who ever helped.
   One case of beer
   is not enough and never was,
   so we are naming you instead.
   
   Dave played the same four notes for a decade
   because the four notes were correct.
   He never served a day
   and he loved it like the ones who did.
   Dennis wrote a justification
   for everything over fifty dollars.
   I approved every one.
   He keeps the copies in a binder.
   
   One case of beer
   and everyone who ever helped.
   One case of beer
   is not enough and never was,
   so we are naming you instead.
   
   Phil read fourteen pages
   and agreed to Appendix B.
   Captain Holt sat at the back, on the right, near the wall.
   When he deployed, Linda put a sign on his stool.
   Nobody sat there.
   Nobody was told not to.
   
   There is a line in the log for every show,
   and every line ends the same:
   one case of beer,
   as negotiated with Phil in nineteen ninety-two.
   It is the nicest sentence any of us ever wrote.
   
   One case of beer
   and everyone who ever helped.
   One case of beer
   is not enough and never was,
   so we are naming you instead.
   
   One case of beer.
   As negotiated.

4. 04Mission Complete7:00