Red Shahan dropped Cotton Fire and it ain’t a feel-good tune for the porch swing crowd. This one’s a scorched-earth story about a man pushed past his breaking point — prices squeezed by the government, debts stacking like busted fence posts, and an insurance man who somehow comes out smelling like money.
It’s hard livin’ on hard land.
Wind-burnt rows, red dirt under your nails, and no soft landing when the numbers quit working. So the match gets struck, the cotton goes up, and that quiet little voice says let that sucker burn.
Shahan doesn’t preach it — he just tells it straight. Same way West Texas tells you the truth: no shade, no mercy, no apologies. Flames licking the sky while a man watches everything he built turn to smoke… and maybe, just maybe, feels lighter for a second.
That’s Cotton Fire.
Not a song about arson — a song about pressure.