Guy Clark – Let Him Roll

He’s a wino, tried and true.

Done about everything there is to do.

He worked on freighters, he worked in bars.

He worked on farms, ‘n he worked on cars.

It was white port, that put that look in his eye

That grown men get when they need to cry

And he sat down on the curb to rest

And his head just fell down on his chest

He said “Every single day it gets

A little bit harder to handle and yet. . .”

And he lost the thread and his mind got cluttered

And the words just rolled off down in the gutter

Well he was elevator man in a cheap hotel

In exchange for the rent on a one room cell

He’s old in years beyond his time

Thanks to the world, and the white Port wine

So he says “Son,” he always called me son

He said, “Life for you has just begun”

And he told me a story that I heard before

How he fell in love with a Dallas whore

Well he could cut through the years to the very night

When it ended, in a whore house fight

And she turned his last proposal down

In favor of being a girl about town

Now it’s been seventeen years right in line

And he ain’t been straight none of the time

Too many days of fightin’ the weather

And too many nights of not being together

So he died. . .

Well when they went through his personal affects

In among the stubs from the welfare checks

Was a crumblin’ picture of a girl in a door

An address in Dallas, and nothin’ more

The welfare people provided the priest

A couple from the mission down the street

Sang Amazing Grace, and no one cried

‘Cept some woman in black, way off to the side

We all left and she was standing there

Black veil covering her silver hair

And ‘ol One-Eyed John said her name was Alice

And she used to be a whore in Dallas

Let him roar, Lord let him roll

Bet he’s gone to Dallas Rest his soul

Lord, let him roll, Lord let him roar

He always said that heaven

Was just a Dallas whore.