Streets of Laredo 2
(for version 1 see my "Folk Lyric Archive")

As I walked out in the Streets of Laredo,
cold was the morning and dark was the day.
In Tom Sherwins' bar room I saw a young cowboy
stretched out on a blanket all pale and grey.

His eyes were fast glazing, death was approaching.
His lips were curled adn tortured with pain.
He spoke in whisper of a life far behind him
of a home in the East he'd not see again.

He said, "First I left for Texas. I worked for a rancher."
I moved far away from all I knew.
Then I started drinkin’. I started gamblin'.
Now here I am with no one but you.

"Once in my saddle I used to go riding.
I never lost a hand that I played.
I used to be happy. Come sit down beside me.
I’ve no one to tell and dyin’ words to say."

Tell my mother I wish I had heeded her warning.
Now its' too late, I bid her adieu.
Got shot in the chest by a Dodge City gambler
He dealt from the bottom, I'm dying today.

Please gather up my last hand of poker
it's there where it dropped when I got shot.
Send it and my six gun back home to my brother
after you've buried me deep in my tomb.

Tell him they're what killed his brother.
Tell him never to part with my fatal hand.
Say carry it always as a reminder
of why he should stay away from wild cattle land.

Tell my family I loved them through all my wild wandering
and that nobody here even knows my name
just that I got in a fight playing stud poker
now I'm lying dying in shame.

His body was aching. His heart was breaking.
All for a girl, his love but not true.
"A curse rest upon her wherever she'll roam.
She drove me from all else I loved and from home.

Oh she was pretty. Oh she was lovely.
The queen of the county, the fairest of all.
But her heart was as cold as teh snow on the mountains.
She gave me up for the glitter of gold.

"Write her a letter, tell her I love her
tell her that now she's no need to be true
remind her she said she'd tell no other.
Say my poor darling, we both died for you.

"Had she but told me before he found me.
Had she but told me about it in time.
I might have got pills. I might have got mercury.
Instead I'm shot down in the height of my prime.

"But tell her also she's always been with me,
carrying me up through long, lonely days,
and that I'm taking her image down through the valley
locked in my heart to be with me always.

"Swing your ropes slowly. Rattle your spurs lowly.
Give a wild call as you follow me along.
Have six gamblers carry my coffin.
Have six dance-hall girls sing me a song."

We beat the drum slowly, played the fife lowly,
sounded a dead march, carried him in a line.
Threw bunches of roses all over his coffin;
he was a young cowboy, cut down in his prime.

Over his headstone these words were written:
"All you cowboys take warnin' from me.
Stay away from women, drinkin’ and gamblin',
mostly from women, one's been the death of me."

The Old Cowboy

I used to be a tough one
Hell-bent I'd go;
killed a man in old Cheyenne,
but now I'm getting slow.

I've starved and ate prickly pears,
I've slept out in the rain.
Been tortured by Apaches
till I couldn't stand the pain.

Been in many a stampede too,
I've heard the roaring noise.
And the light I had to turn them by
was the lightning on their horns.

This old cowboys' watched it change,
I've seen the good times go;
and cowboys like me leave the plain
just like the buffalo.

Home on the Range

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam,
and the deer and the antelope play;
there seldom is heard a discouraging word
and the skies are not cloudy all day.

Chorus:

Home, home on the range,
where the deer and the antelope play,
where seldom is heard a discouraging word
and the skies are not cloudy all day.

Oh give me a land where the bright diamond sand,
throws its' light from the glittering streams.
Where there glide along graceful white swans,
like girls in heavenly dreams.

Give me the gleam of a swift mountain stream,
a place where no hurricane blows.
Give me the park where teh prairie dogs bark
and the mountains all covered with snow.

I would not exchange my home on the range
where the deer and the antelope play;
where seldom is heard a discouraging word
and the skies are not cloudy all day.

The Dying Cowboy

Its' the same old story
his love found another and fled.
As he lay there dying,
this is what he said:

It matters not, so I've been told,
where a body lies when the heart is cold.
But grant, oh grant one wish to me,
bury me not on the lone prarie.

O bury me not on on the lone prarie
where the wild coyotes will howl over me,
where the west wind sweeps and the grasses wave,
and sunbeams burn a prarie grave.

He had wailed in pain till across his brow
the shadow of death was a gathering now.
He missed the home he'd told good-bye
now only cowboys came to see him die.

O bury me not on on the lone prarie
where the wild, wild wolves will howl over me,
in a narrow grave just six by three,
o bury me not on the lone prarie.

I've always wished that when I died
my grave would be on the old hillside.
Let my place of rest there be,
bury me not on the lone prarie.

O bury me not on the lone prarie
where the wild coyotes will how over me.
Where the rattlesnakes hiss and the crow flies free,
O bury me not on the lone prarie.

O bury me not on the lone prarie
in a narrow grave just six by three.
Where the buzzard waits and the wind blows free,
o bury me not on the lone prarie.

O bury me not - and his voice failed there
but we took no heed of his dying prayer.
In a narrow grave six foot by three,
we buried him there on the lone prarie.

O we buried him there one the lone prarie
where the wild rose blooms and the wind blows free.
His bright young face, never more to see,
we buried him there on the lone prarie.

Yes we buried him there on the lone prarie
where teh owl all night hoots mournfully.
Where the buzzard beats and the wind blows free
o'er his lonely grave on the lone prarie.