Robert Earl Keen

[fox69]

"Sonora's Death Row"
(originally by The Moonlighters)

"Sonora's Death Row"
(originally by The Moonlighters)



Me and the boys we cinched up our saddles and rode to sonora last night
Gun's hanging proud, daring out loud for any one looking to fight
Card cheats and rustlers would run for their holes when the boys from the old broken O
Rode up and reined on the street that they named Sonora's death row

Mescal is free at Amanda's saloon for the boys from the old broken O
Saturday nights in the town of Sonora are the best in all Mexico
They've got guitars and trumpets and sweet senoritas who won't want to let you go
You'd never believe such a gay happy time on the street called Sonora's death row

Inside Amanda's we was a dancin' with all of Amanda's gals
I won some silver at seven card stud so I was out doin' my pals
But the whiskey and mescal, peso cigars drove me outside for some air
Somebody whispered "Your life or your money", I reached but my gun wasn't there

I woke up face down in Amanda's back alley aware of the fool I had been
Rushed to my pony, grabbed my Winchester and entered Amanda's again
Where I saw my partners twirling my pistols and throwing my money around
Blinded by anger, I jacked the lever and one of them fell to the ground
Amanda's got silent like night in the desert, my friends stared in pure disbelief

Amanda was kneeling beside the dead cowboy plainly expressing her grief
And as I bowed my head a trembled shot through me my six-gun was still at my side
I felt my pockets, there was my money, I fell to my knees and I cried
A nightmare of mescal is all that it was for no one had robbed me at all
I wish I was dreaming the sound of the gallows they're testing just outside
The wall

The mescal's still free at Amanda's saloon for the boys from the old Broken O
I'd give a ransom to drink there today and be free of Sonora's death row
I'd give a ransom to drink there today and be free of Sonora's death row

 

[fox69]

"Soul Of Man"

"Soul Of Man"


To Canaan's land, I'm on my way
Where the soul never dies
My darkest night will turn to day
Where the soul (never) never dies

[Chorus:]
No sad farewells (dear friends there'll be no sad farewells)
No tear dimmed eyes (there'll be no tear dimmed eyes)
Where all is joy (where all is peace and joy and love)
And the soul never dies (and the soul of man never dies)

The rose is blooming there for me
Where the soul never dies
And I will spend eternity
Where the soul never dies

[Chorus]

The love light beams across the foam
Where the soul (of man) never dies
It shines and lights the way to home
Where the soul (of man) never dies

[Chorus]

Dear friends there'll be no sad farewells (no sad farewells)
There'll be no tear dimmed eyes (no tear dimmed eyes)
Where all is peace and joy and love (where all is joy)
And the soul of man never dies (and the soul never dies)
And the soul never dies
And the soul (of man) never dies

 

[fox69]

"Steam Powered Aeroplane"

"Steam Powered Aeroplane"


Well I never went away on a steam powered aeroplane.
Well I went and stayed and damn near didn't come back again.
Didn't go very fast on a steam powered aeroplane,
Oh the wheel went around, up and down, and inside and then back again.

Sittin' in a 747 just watching them clouds roll by,
Can't tell if it's sunshine or if it's rain.
Rather be sittin' in a deck chair high above Kansas City,
On a genuine old fashioned steam powered aeroplane.

Well I'd like to be a pilot on a steam powered aeroplane.
Well I'd pull that pilot wheel around and then back again.
Well, I'll wear a blue hat, yeah, that says steam powered aeroplane
With letters that go around the rim and then back again.

 

[fox69]

"Stewball"

"Stewball"


There's a big race down in Dallas
Don't you wish that you were there?
You could bet your bottom dollar
On that iron gray mare

Had a black horse named Delilah
And I raised her on the farm
There was thunder, there was lightning
On the day Stewball was born

Won't you bet on Stewball, she might win win win
Bet on Stewball she might win
Bet on Stewball, she might win win win
Bet on Stewball she might win

So I sold off my possessions
And I headed for the town
I brought Stewball here to Dallas
And I laid my money down

Won't you bet on Stewball, she might win win win
Bet on Stewball she might win
Won't you bet on Stewball, she might win win win
Bet on Stewball she might win

All the children are a-laughin'
And the women, they a-cryin'
All the menfolk are a-hollerin'
Old Stewball, she's a-flyin'

Won't you bet on Stewball, she might win win win
Bet on Stewball she might win
Won't you bet on Stewball, she might win win win
Bet on Stewball she might win

Won't you bet on Stewball, she might win win win
Bet on Stewball she might win
Won't you bet on Stewball, she might win win win
Bet on Stewball she might win

 

[fox69]

"Still Without You/conclusion: Road To No Return"

"Still Without You/conclusion: Road To No Return"


I climbed the mountains and I swept the plains
I crossed the border and I broke my chains
I walked the back roads 'til my shoes wore through
I'm still without you without you

I lie awake at night and say your name
I paint your picture in a starlit frame
I try imagining a rendezvous
I'm still without you.... without you

I thought I'd find
You would leave my mind
But my dreams they just don't know
They can't seem to let you go
I'm so sad I don't know what to do
Without you

I often wonder how it came to this
If I could travel back to our last kiss
If I had a different point of view
I'm still without you.... without you
The moon is sitting just beyond the hill
The wind is resting but my heart won't still
It happens every night right on cue
I'm still without you.... without you

I thought I'd find
You would leave my mind
But my dreams they just don't know
They can't seem to let you go
I'm so sad I don't know what to do
Without you

 

[fox69]

"Swervin' In My Lane"

"Swervin' In My Lane"


Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing
'Cause sometimes all my days are filled with rain
As I travel down life's higway, things ain't going my way
'Cause there's always someone swervin' in my lane
You keep a swervin' in my lane and it's causing' lots of danger
I'm a honkin' on my horn, I'm a shooting you the finger
I keep a switchin' on my bright lights, but your just too dim to know
When your swervin' on life's highway, your running someone off the road

The day you drove away I thought I never
Could love another. How else could I feel?
But now when you run into me, I cain't believe I could not see
Your all tanked up, but no ones at the wheel

You keep a swervin' in my lane and it's causin' lots of danger
I'm a cussin' out your name, I'm a shooting you the finger
I keep a switchin' on my bright lights, but your just too dimm to know
When your swervin' on life's highway, your running someone off the road

When and if I ever finally pass you
Oh when I do and if I'm still alive
I want never see you, cause I'm ripping out my rear view
And I'm shifting it on in to overdrive

But your still swervin' in my lane and it's causin' lots of danger
I'm a stompin' on the foot feed, I'm a shooting you the finger
I keep a switchin' on my bright lights, but your just too dimm to know
When your swervin' on life's highway, your running someone off the road

 

[fox69]

"That Buckin' Song"

"That Buckin' Song"


I had a horse
named Bad Luck
She weren't good lookin'
but she sure could buck

Yahoo hey hey
Yippee yi cy yey

I put my mama on her
She threw her in the air
My mama said son
"that's a mother buckin' mare"

Yahoo hey hey
Yippee yi cy yey

Took her to the rodeo
She won second place
She was really buckin' good
in the buckin' barrel race

Yahoo hey hey
Yippee yi cy yey

She won a thousand dollars
I put it in my hat
Bought a brand new saddle
She bucked me out of that

Yahoo hey hey
Yippee yi cy yey

She bucked me on the
pick-up truck
She bucked me on the fence
My daddy said
son, you got no buckin' sense"

Yahoo hey hey
Yippee yi cy yey

So if you gotta bucker
Don't ever buck around
That buckin' mother bucker
will buck you on the ground

Yahoo hey hey
Yippee yi cy yey

 

[fox69]

"The Armadillo Jackal"

"The Armadillo Jackal"


The evening sun was sinkin' down, a chill north wind a-blows
The new plowed ground was coolin' fast, the river rolls and flows
Beneath the two lane concrete river bridge between my place
And town on that hot bed farm to market road they call 1291

I'm sayin' son you'll see me searchin'; sizzlin' down that broad highway
Dollar signs in both my eyes, I'm seekin' out my prey
I'm prayin', "Jesus, will you send me just another three or four?"
They pay two-fifty down in Hallettsville, 3 dollars, maybe more

And more than likely they'll be out tonight a-wanderin' from the farms
Waddlin' down 1291 to keep their bodies warm
I'm talking walkin' belts and neckties and boots for rodeo
They don't run too fast, don't waste much gas, I'm makin' lots o'dough

The armadillo, the armadillo
The armadillo

Never sees me when I hit him with my brights
His life don't pass before his eyes, he's blinded by my lights
And so I hit him with my bumper doin' sixty, sixty-five
They take 'em frozen down in Hallettsville, they don't take 'em alive

The jackal cried, the jackal cried
The jackal cried

Look there's two of them a-walkin' down the line
I can't believe my luck tonight this here makes twenty-nine
And so he rolled the first one runnin', the second was too fast
His breaks and laughter squealin' as he stomped down on the gas

Good God, his car was sideways flyin'
When the bridge wall met his door
The impact shook the river bed
His foot went through the floor

Forevermore, forevermore
Forevermore

Was his last moment from the bridge wall to the stream
From the speckled blood around his smile a-spewin' gasoline
And then he screamed his raspy epitaph before he turned to flame
They pay two-fifty down in Hallettsville, I ain't the one to blame

Ain't it a shame, the jackal cried?
The armadillo, the armadillo
The armadillo, the armadillo
The armadillo

 

[fox69]

"The Bluegrass Widow"

"The Bluegrass Widow"


It's been five years come this autumn, she remembers well the day
The day the fever got him, and took him far away
Far away from always knowing that the love they shared was true
Far away the fiddler's bowing, the grass forever blue

It was in the dead of winter when her man first caught the chill
And he said he heard the angels singing "Cabin on the Hill"
Through the springtime he was groaning "The good times are past and gone"
By the summer she was moaning "Old lover please come home"

Now she stands out in the midnight in the moonlight all aglow
She prays to Carter Stanley "Won't you please tell Bill Monroe
Rather be in some dark hollow or some dark deep shady grove
Than to be a bluegrass widow"

[Spoken:]
I started listening to bluegrass music in Bryan Duckworth's rust red 1970 Ford Maverick.
Had an eight track tape deck and an eight track tape of Bill Monroe's Greatest Hits.
We used to skip second period chemistry and go over to the Shamrock station across the street from the high school and get a case of Texas Pride beer.
Charge it on my dad's credit card and get 'em to write it up as oil so dad never knew the difference.
Then we'd ride around and drink Texas Pride, listen to Bill Monroe.
Soon we got to be bluegrass experts.
And we'd stop in another Shamrock station and get another Texas Pride case,
drink that and listen to the Stanley Brothers and then we'd go get a tape of Jim and Jesse and it was on to the Kentucky Colonels and Mack Wiseman and the New Grass Revival, Peter Rowan, and finally I got the brilliant idea one day to take all the greatest bluegrass song titles in the world and string 'em together to make this song right here,
The Bluegrass Widow. Quite possibly the worst bluegrass song ever written.

I did this in tribute to the Front Porch Boys, which was a bluegrass band I was in in College Station, Texas.
We were a little four piece band, we played weddings and parties and out on the porch and beer joints and one weekend on a handful of cheap amphetamines, we decided to go to Crockett, Texas.
We entered the International Bluegrass Band Competition and took second place.
We could play faster than anybody in the competition.
The other two bands took first and third, respectively.
I met some friends and went off into the night separated from the Front Porch Boys and met back up with them in the cold, gray light of dawn, as the bluegrass songs say.
They were standing underneath a giant pine tree there in Crockett singing the rudest, most grotesque, nastiest bluegrass songs you've ever heard in your life.
I'm talking about the kind of song where not only is the character in the song dead by the end of the song, but he's been dismembered as well.
And the Front Porch Boys stopped and looked up at me just long enough to say, "We're taking bluegrass music where it's never been before.
And we're not taking you with us 'cuz you don't have that high and lonesome sound that bluegrass music requires." Well, I'm not one to fight failure.
I packed up my stuff and left.
The Front Porch Boys broke up three days later when they realized I owned the PA system.

"Will you miss me when I'm gone?" were his final words to her
"Darlin' think of what you've done," then replied his Knoxville girl
And the leaves had started turning when his mind began to fail
Then he broke down in a breakdown, now she wears a long black veil.

And she stands out in the midnight in the moonlight all aglow
She prays to Carter Stanley "Won't you please tell Bill Monroe
Rather be in some dark hollow or some dark deep shady grove
Than to be a bluegrass widow"

And she stands out in the midnight in the moonlight all aglow
She prays to Carter Stanley "Won't you please tell Bill Monroe
Rather be in some dark hollow or some dark deep shady grove
Than to be a bluegrass widow"

 

[fox69]

"The Coldest Day Of Winter"

"The Coldest Day Of Winter"


On the coldest day of winter
In the darkest dead of night
Lying down beside each other
Wrapped up in the fireside light

[Chorus:]
We may never live forever
But we'll never be apart
And this vow they made together
Hand in hand, heart to heart

In the blossom of the the springtime
In the springtime of their lives
In a little wedding chapel
They became both man and wife

[Chorus]

Thru the long hot days of summer
Trying hard to make their way
In the coolness of the evening
They would love their cares away

[Chorus]

But she found he had a secret
And the leaves began to fall
If he couldn't live forever
Then she wouldn't live at all

Then he cried, you'll find another
But she would not understand
And they buried them together
Heart to heart, hand in hand

Heart to heart, hand in hand