'Welcome To The Plains' by Wyatt Flores - Lyrics and Meaning

Since his breakout 2022 single, 'Please Don't Go,' which has garnered well over 300 million streams to date and placements on Billboard charts and beyond, Wyatt Flores has been on a rocket ship only going up.

With every new release, including his previous EPs like Half Life and Life Lessons, his status as one of the genre's rising stars has only intensified.

As all roads have been leading to the release of his highly-anticipated full-length debut, Welcome To The Plains, the Oklahoma native has been popping out one instant fan-favorite after another, such as 'Don’t Wanna Say Goodnight,' 'Oh Susannah,' 'Little Town' and its thrilling title track.

On the record's namesake, Flores paints a vivid picture of the region of the United States known as the Great Plains, located to the east of the Rocky Mountains and covered in prairie, steppe and grassland.

Lying across both the Central U.S. and western Canada, this region includes Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, as well as parts of Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Flores' home state of Oklahoma.

From the top down, Welcome To The Plains sees producer Beau Bedford behind the soundboard, who has also worked with impressive acts like Orville Peck and Shane Smith & the Saints.

One of fourteen tracks, all of which find Flores with co-writing credits, this offering also sees a fun writing collaboration with Old Crow Medicine Show's Ketch Secor, who no doubt contributed to the song's liveliness.

As has become standard across Flores' work thus far, 'Welcome To The Plains' sees him accompanied by his raucous band, with a commanding fiddle leading the way through much of the tune that often times sounds like a southern-singed jam session.

“From 500 feet above in a fire was a morning dove
Searching for a place to land
I’d perch up on the turnpike
Watch old sedans and semis
And wonder where they’re going and where they’ve been

Looking back now through the years
Before the hands of man were here
Rusty shovels found black gold
And tumbleweeds were free like the Choctaw and Cherokee
Before they had to call this land their home
If only they could see how it’s gone”

Admittedly, 'Welcome To The Plains' is a hard song to follow or find any direct meaning out of. However, we shall do our best to make sense out of it!

At its start, we're left to believe that the singer is taking on the perspective of a dove, perched high above the plains watching as people shuffle in and out of the place he calls home. Often known as a "flyover state" – places in the continental U.S. that some urban, wealthy, white-collar Americans never actually see at ground level, but only from airplanes as they pass over them – Oklahoma is one of those states that, to most, you only ever drive through or fly over as opposed to stay in.

Going back in time, the narrator reminisces on what this part of the country was like before the big businesses and civilization came. As Indians roamed and oil was abundant, it was free land full of liquid gold and natural beauty.

“Now it’s red dirt tears and broken mirrors
And a little trailer park just south of here
End of the world is getting near but I still feel the same
And it’s red dirt poor and wanting more
Mr. Weatherman knocking at my door
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Welcome to the plains”

Now, as decades have past, both droughts and men in suits have stripped this land of its riches, leaving only "red dirt tears and broken mirrors."

Making note of the severe levels of poverty felt throughout this region, something that's been felt dating back to the Great Depression, our protagonist explains that all the dreams dry up around these parts and there's always some powerful figure coming to take what you have left.

This, in a nutshell, is how he would introduce the plains to those uninitiated folk.

“And if I was a coyote running
Stealing on the Cimarron
Looking for a place to cool my head
Find shelter from the voices
Telling me my only choices
Are to get up, get gone, keep moving west
And If I ever left, those eyes would fill up fast with”

Switching from a peaceful dove to a prowling coyote, he takes us on a bit of a tour of the Great Plains.

Translating from Spanish to mean "wild" or "untamed," cimarron refers to a part of the southern Rocky Mountains where the fight for resources like timber, gold, coal and grazing lands long bred violent struggle for people of the plains.

As the narrator explains that he participated in the actions here, he notes that the only option for survival – whether it's financial or tangible – is to keep going West where opportunity and resources were bound to be more plentiful.

“Red dirt tears and broken mirrors
And a little trailer park just south of here
End of the world is getting near but I still feel the same
And it’s red dirt poor and wanting more
Mr. Weatherman knocking at my door
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Welcome to the plains”

The title track to Flores' debut record finds the Oklahoma native attempting to shed some light on where he comes from and what makes the people of "the plains" who they are.

“For my debut album, I wanted folks to know where I come from. Oklahoma has long been called a flyover state, but it’s far more than that to me," he explains. "It’s filled with the kindest people, a dark history and a resilience that’s like nowhere else. I hope ‘Welcome to the Plains’ brings a little curiosity to not only the Red Dirt sound but the culture that defines it.”

Looking at the project on the whole, the tune fits in line well to the album's central storyline, which has a special place in Flores' heart.

“It’s an album about home and a search for happiness. It’s an album about Stillwater, Oklahoma, and all the other little towns that have raised people like you and me. It’s an album about my family, and the people and places in my life who have defined who I am today," the singer-songwriter explains. "This album is happy on one side and heartbreak on the other, and whoever you are, I hope you find something you love in here.”

From 500 feet above in a fire was a morning dove
Searching for a place to land
I’d perch up on the turnpike
Watch old sedans and semis
And wonder where they’re going and where they’ve been

Looking back now through the years
Before the hands of man were here
Rusty shovels found black gold
And tumbleweeds were free like the Choctaw and Cherokee
Before they had to call this land their home
If only they could see how it’s gone

Now it’s red dirt tears and broken mirrors
And a little trailer park just south of here
End of the world is getting near but I still feel the same
And it’s red dirt poor and wanting more
Mr. Weatherman knocking at my door
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Welcome to the plains

And if I was a coyote running
Stealing on the Cimarron
Looking for a place to cool my head
Find shelter from the voices
Telling me my only choices
Are to get up, get gone, keep moving west
And If I ever left, those eyes would fill up fast with

Red dirt tears and broken mirrors
And a little trailer park just south of here
End of the world is getting near but I still feel the same
And it’s red dirt poor and wanting more
Mr. Weatherman knocking at my door
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Welcome to the plains

Now it’s red dirt tears and broken mirrors
And a little trailer park just south of here
End of the world is getting near but I still feel the same And it’s red dirt poor and wanting more
Mr. Weatherman knocking at my door
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Where dreams go drying up like rain
Welcome to the plains
Welcome to the plains
Welcome to the plains

–

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