The papers have been full of it all year — big country names, big endings, front-page heartbreak. Fine. But it got me to thinking about Tommy and June, two names you have never heard and never will. Corner booth at the diner, rings off by the salt and the spoon, and not one reporter in the county who'd cross the street for it. That's the divorce epidemic nobody counts: the quiet ones. And somebody's got to sing for them, so this Tuesday on my station, I did.
[Verse 1]
Coffee gone cold at the corner booth
Tommy's wringing his hat like it owes him the truth
June's rings are laying by the salt and the spoon
And the clock on the pie case is a-ticking too soon
By the register the front page is loud
Somebody famous is tearing it down
Half the diner's huddled around section B
Reading 'bout hearts they'll never see
[Chorus]
It's the end nobody wrote, and it cuts the deepest of all
No headline, no pictures, nothing printed at all
The famous sell their sorrow and the whole town drinks it slow
But who sings for Tommy and June in the corner-booth row
The end nobody wrote — it don't even have a name
Unwritten ain't unmourned, and I'm burning just the same
[Verse 2]
They married her in June — that's how June got her name
White dress his mama hemmed from a curtain frame
A little house by the feed store, a boy in the yard
Then Charlotte called the boy, and the years got hard
No villain in this story, no lipstick on a shirt
No barroom, no other man, no divorce-court hurt
Just two people saying grace to a stranger's ghost
Loving what they buried more than what they'd lost
[Steel Guitar Solo]
[Verse 3]
That hat on the counter was mine, if you care
I'm the man in the story — I'm still sitting there
No reporter came knocking, no camera, no quote
June's leaving never ran — it was too small to note
So I wrote it down in this fiddle and this moan
The only paper it was printed on, and I print it alone
Unwritten don't mean unmourned — I'll say it one more time
Some endings make the papers... mine just made this rhyme
[Final Chorus]
It's the end nobody wrote, and it cuts the deepest of all
No headline, no pictures, nothing printed at all
The famous sell their sorrow and the whole town drinks it slow
But somebody's got to sing for June and that corner-booth row
The end nobody wrote — well, it finally has a name
It was Tommy, it was June, it was me — burning just the same
[Spoken Outro]
(spoken) If you're reading the news this morning and somebody famous
is coming apart at the seams... say a little prayer for the corner booth.
There's a Tommy and a June in every town in America,
and Lord knows — nobody's printing their names.
Written & performed by Waylon · DirtRoadRadio
