tom ames prayer — текст песни (keen jr robert earl)

From: tbacus@onramp.net


Tom Ames Prayer
by Steve Earle

G
Everyone in Nacodoches
G D
Knew Tom Ames would come to a bad end
Em
`Cause the sheriff caught him
C G D G
Stealin` chickens and such by the time he was ten


One day his Daddy took a ten dollar bill
And tucked it in his hand
He said I know you`re headed for trouble son
Your Momma wouldn`t understand

So he took his Dad`s money and his brother`s old bay
He left without a word of thanks
He fell in with this crowd in some border town
And he took to robbing banks

Outside the law his luck a- run out fast
A few years came and went
`Til he`s trapped in an alley in Abilene
With all but four shells spent

And he realized prayin` was the only thing
That he hadn`t ever tried
Well he wasn`t sure he quite knew how
But he looked up to the sky

He said you don`t owe me nothin` and as far as I know Lord
I don`t owe nothin` to you
I ain`t askin` for a miricle Lord
Just a little bit of luck will do

You know I ain`t never prayed before
`Cause it always seemed to me
That prayin`s the same as beggin` Lord
I don`t take no charity

but right now Lord with my back to the wall
I can`t help but recall
How they nearly hung me for stealin` a horse
In Fort Smith, Arkansas

Judge Parker said guilty and the gavel came down
Just like a cannon shot
I went away quietly
I began to file a plot

They sent the preacher down to my cell
He said the Lord`s your only hope
He`s the only friend you`re gonna have son
When you hit the end of Parker`s rope

And I guess he could have kept preachin` till Christmas
but he turned his back on me
I put a homemade blade to that golden throat
Asked the deputy for the key

It ain`t the first trouble I`ve seen before
As you already know
I`ve had some help from you Lord and the Devil himself`s
been strictly touch and go

Yeah but who in the hell am I talkin` to
There ain`t no one here but me
So he cocked both his pistols and he spit in the dirt
And he walked out into that street