The Carroll Country Accident - Porter Wagoner

Carroll County’s pointed out as kind of square

The biggest thing that happens is the county fair,

I guess that’s why it seemed like such a big event,

What we all call the Carroll County accident.

The wreck was on the highway just inside the line,

Walter Browning lost his life and for a time

It seemed that Mary Ellen Jones would surely die,

But she lived long enough for her to testify.

Walter Browning was a happy married man

He wore a golden wedding ring upon his hand

but it was gone, nobody knew just where it went

He lost it in the Carroll County accident

Mary Ellen testified that he flagged her down,

Said he was sick and could she drive him into town,

and no one even doubted what she said was true,

'Cause she was well respected in the county too.

I went down to see the wreck like all the rest,

The bloody seat, the broken glass, the tangled mess,

But I found something no one else had even seen,

behind the dash in Mary’s crumpled up machine.

A little match box circled by a rubber band,

And inside the ring from Walter Browning’s hand,

It took awhile to figure out just what it meant,

The truth about the Carroll County accident.

By dark of night I dropped the ring into a well,

And took a sacred oath that I would never tell,

The truth about the Carroll County accident,

'cause the County ordered dad a marble monument,

I lost him in the Carroll County accident.