From the recording Wall Dogs
Tin Foil Star
Every Christmas, my wife Janet’s late father Jack Sluss cut out a cardboard star wrapped in tinfoil to top the family tree in Coeburn, VA. He did work in Sandusky, Ohio in the summers for a number of years, and like so many Appalachian migrants, he would return in the Fall and Winter. No one could have sung this song as well and with such truth as Dale Ann Bradley.
Lyrics
TIN FOIL STAR
(© 2024, Tim Stafford, Thomm Jutz, Daniel House Music, BMI; Thommsongs SESAC admin. Blue Water)
V) He worked all the way to Christmas Eve cause that’s what he had to do
We came home from Sandusky for just a week or two
The stars would shine outside on the cold Virginia snow
But none of them as pretty as the one inside at home
CH) A cedar from the hillside growing everywhere
Ornaments from anything that we’d find anywhere
It was almost six feet tall once we put it in the stand
and on top, a tinfoil star my Daddy made by hand
V) They barely had a day to get it all fixed up
We never had a lot, but we always had enough
The house smelled like heaven, green beans and ham
Cinnamon and coffee, rolls and homemade jam
CH) A cedar from the hillside growing everywhere
Ornaments from anything that we’d find anywhere
It was almost six feet tall once we put it in the stand
and on top, a tinfoil star my Daddy made by hand
V) He cut it out of cardboard with a hen and rooster blade
five points in each direction, it had to be that way
wrapped in scraps of tinfoil upon a midnight clear
one for each of us to guide us through the year
CH) A cedar from the hillside growing everywhere
Ornaments from anything that we’d find anywhere
It was almost six feet tall once we put it in the stand
and on top, a tinfoil star my Daddy made by hand