The words are in English, do they have some hidden meaning?


My guess is the songwriter never saw a still.

I bet your right, some ancestors of mine made moonshine...It was survival for them...The big money was made by the distributors selling to the Chicago speakeasies.

Google the meaning of the words, that's what I did, just going by what people said on that site

Love old Steve Earle, Towns Van Zandt took him under his wing. Don't care for his politics now days.

Bought it at auction at the Mason's Lodge....

Painted over the Johnson county sheriff with primer, or something like that

Lyrics
Well my name's John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
You hardly ever saw Grandaddy down here
He only come to town about twice a year
He'd buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine
Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad
He headed up the holler with everything he had
It's before my time but I've been told
He never come back from Copperhead Road


Now Daddy ran the whiskey in a big black Dodge
Bought it at an auction at the Mason's Lodge
Johnson County Sheriff painted on the side
Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside
Well him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin' sound
Well the sheriff came around in the middle of the night
Heard mama cryin', knew something wasn't right
He was headed down to Knoxville with the weekly load
You could smell the whiskey burnin' down Copperhead Road


I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash first, 'round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
And I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Columbia and Mexico
I plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road
Well the D.E.A.'s got a chopper in the air
I wake up screaming like I'm back over there
I learned a thing or two from ol' Charlie don't you know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road


Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road
Copperhead

They say the thing or two were the boobie traps he learned from the Vietcong

I’m not into his politics either.

But his new album is really dang good. Sounds like some of his older stuff. It’s worth a listen for sure.

Youtube gave me Copperhead Road as a suggestion just a little bit ago. I liked it, even though I am not a big country music fan.

Both my paternal great grandfathers were bootleggers. My paternal grandfather and his brothers had to bottle the booze for sale before going to school in the morning. Things went better for them than for the people in the song. They owned officers in the local sheriffs departments and police departments.

Keith

If you play guitar it isn't too tricky to learn the song.

Mike

Things haven't changed much. Organized gangs control distribution and pay off cops, judges and legislators today also. With many organizations being run by judges, cops and or legislators.

People learned from their mistakes during/after alcohol prohibition though. Kennedy family still imported booze but made a lot less after the end of prohibition.

there is a lot more money to be made if you pretend there is a "war" on drugs

All iknow is if he used up a 100 pounds of yeast he made alot of likker.

....ole Steve Earle is a commie piece of crap ... but he made some decent songs.....I like “Ellis unit one” ... only because I live in the area and can see how executing people for a living could give a man a bad dream every now and then lol

This song always brings me back. When I was attending tech school a popular weekend event was the barn dance in Arthur ND. It was a dance floor above a working barn the walls were lined with pictures from years of the past and men and women that met at the barn and become married.
During one of the dances was the first time I had heard the song.
When ever I hear that song to this day I can still hear all the boots stomping the floor where it felt like the floor would bounce. Unfortuanlly I heard that it has burnt down and they are trying to get it going again.

Saw him introduce and play it as a brand new song he was working on 30+ years ago, LOL.

He was opening for Rosanne Cash.

Just before his drug addled mind veered hard left into Crazy Land.

heroin addict, saw a interview with him a little while back, said the only reason he had a house to live in is cause he couldn't throw it in the car and take it to the pawn shop

To be fair, guys like Merle haggard did a lot of dope too, and still made some good music. But don't think the Hag ever veered so far to the left like earle has. Guitar town, his early stuff, is a pretty good country album.

I remember learning to play copperhead road on the guitar when I was younger. I still love that song !!

Too bad they have to speak their politics, I just want to hear the music