> Folk Music > Songs > Love at the Five and Dime

Love at the Five and Dime

[Nanci Griffith]

Nanci Griffith’s song Love at the Five and Dime can be found on her album Last of the True Believers (1985) and on her live CD One Fair Summer Evening (1988).

American Country singer Kathy Mattea sang Love at the Five and Dime on her 1986 album Walk the Way the Wind Blows. The song reached #3 in the Country charts.

Jon Boden sang Love at the Five and Dime as the 7 November 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Lyrics

Jon Boden sings Love at the Five and Dime

Rita was sixteen years, brown eyes and chestnut hair,
She made the Woolworth counter shine.
Eddie was a sweet romancer, and a darn good dancer
And they’d waltz the aisles of the Five and Dime, and they’d sing …

Chorus (after each verse):
Dance a little closer to me, dance a little closer now,
Dance a little closer tonight.
Dance a little closer to me, it’s closing time
And love’s on sale tonight at this Five and Dime

Eddie played the steel guitar and his mother cried cause he played in the bar
And he kept young Rita out late at night.
So they married up in Abilene, lost a child in Tennessee;
Still that love survived, dancing …

One of the boys in Eddie’s band took a shine to Rita’s hands
So Eddie ran off with the bass man’s wife.
Oh but he was back by June, singin’ a different tune,
Sportin’ Miss Rita back by his side. Singing …

Eddie played in the barroom bands till arthritis took his hands,
So he sells insurance now on the side.
Rita’s got a house to keep, she likes dime store novels of a love so sweet
They waltz to the radio late at night. They still sing …