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"Angels on the Wing" audio, lyrics & notes

A bluegrass-adjacent guardian angel song

Here are the lyrics and audio for "Angels on the Wing," an original bluegrass-adjacent guardian-angel folk song by Lannie Dietle. This powerful, moving tune recounts the true story of how a young gas station attendant in Mercer, Pennsylvania was miraculously saved by a disembodied voice that warned him just in time to save him from being crushed to death. If the voice wasn't a guardian angel, then please do tell what it was! Enjoy the free lyrics, personal notes, and streaming audio below.

Angels on the Wing — a bluegrass-adjacent guardian angel song
© Lannie Dietle 2025

I worked as a pump jockey back when I was just a kid,
And fueling up them dump trucks was something that I did.
When they stopped at the pump, the drivers raised the beds up high
So I could pass the hose under, n' fill the tank on the other side.

One day I leaned under a bed to pull the hose back through.
I gave it not a thought, it was just a thing I'd been taught to do.
That was how things had been done there for oh so many years,
It was just our usual thing: It wasn't nothing that I feared.

I don't know if angels watchin' over trucks is a normal thing,
But when I see them rolling by, I think of angels on the wing.
Oh, when I see them rolling by, I see an angel on the wing.

I was stretched out under that big ole dump truck bed
When a strange voice spoke to me, right inside my head.
Look up Lannie, it said, or maybe Lannie look out.
I didn't wait around to see what that voice was all about!

I sprang back just like a spring, and it wasn't none soon
Because as soon as I pulled clear, I heard a big ba-boom!
The bed falling on the frame had made that awful sound,
If I hadn't jerked backwards, I wouldn't be around.

I don't know if angels watching over trucks is a normal thing,
But when I see them rolling by, I think of angels on the wing.
Oh, when I see them rolling by, I see an angel on the wing.

The diesel fuel nozzle was smashed flat by the falling bed,
And if not for the little voice, that'd be me instead.
I wondered who had saved my life, and I searched all around.
But I was completely by myself – no other soul to be found.

The truck driver was a stranger, and my name he did not know.
He was in the men's room when I dodged that deadly blow.
Now, you may not believe in angels, but I'm sure of one thing:
That voice inside my head didn't come from any human being.

If not for that voice, I'd a been crushed to death that day,
And how I jumped back in time, I just cain't explain away.

I don't know if angels watching over trucks is a normal thing,
But when I see them rolling by, I think of angels on the wing.
Oh, when I see them rolling by, I see an angel on the wing.

Thoughts on a very personal guardian angel folk song

The "Angels on the Wing" song tells the true story of how my life was saved by a startling voice inside my head when I was working as a gas station attendant at Agway Petroleum Corporation on the south side of Mercer, Pennsylvania. If not for that voice, I would have been crushed to death by the falling bed of a dump truck. My mother urged me to write about the experience, and now I have — both in this song and on pages 335 & 336 of my 2024 book "In the Land of Used to Be."

This event happened a lifetime ago, and I no longer remember whether the voice said "look up" or "look out," but it was one of those two, combined with my first name. As the song says, I immediately searched all around to discover who had saved my life, but there just wasn't anyone around. There was just me and the truck. A guardian angel is the only explanation I can think of.

L. Dietle
camouflage

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