Written by: Bob Ferguson
# Debut Chart
2 Nov '68 Country
92 Jan '69 Hot 100

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,
And he wore a golden wedding ring up on his hand.
But it was gone, nobody knew just where it went,
He lost it in the Carroll County accident.

Mary Ellen testified he flagged her down,
Said he was sick and could she drive him into town,
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 b_____ seats, 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 a while 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.

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