Let Him Roll
Written: Guy Clark
Performed live on Austin City Limits in 1982
CAPO: none / Key: D
[D] Let him roll, boys, let him roll [G]
I'll [A] bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul [D]
SPOKEN:
[D] Now he was a wino tried and true
He [G] did about everything a man could do
He [A] worked on factories, he worked on cars
He [G] worked on farms, and he worked in bars [D]
It was White Port Wine that put that look in his eye
That grown men get when they need to cry
And when we sat down on the curb to rest
His head just fell down on his chest
And he said, " Every single day it gets just
a little bit harder to handle and yet"
Then he lost the thread and his mind got cluttered
And his words just rolled off down the gutter
He was an elevator man in a cheap hotel
In exchange for the rent in a one-room cell
And he was years old before his time
No thanks to the world and the White Port Wine
Well he said, " Son," he always called me son
He said, " Life for you has just begun"
Then he told me a story that I'd heard before
How he fell in love with a Dallas wh* * *
He could cut through the years to the very night
That it all ended in a wh* * *house fight
When 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
And it's too many years of fighting the weather
And too many nights of not being together, so he died
SUNG:
[D] Let him roll, boys, let him roll [G]
I'll [A] bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul [D]
Let him roll, boys, let him roll [G]
He [A] always thought that heaven was [G] just a Dallas wh* * * [D]
SPOKEN:
Well we went through his personal effects
In among all the stubs from a Well Fare checks
Was a crumbling picture of a girl in a door
In a dress in Dallas and nothing more
The Well Fare people provided the priest
And a couple from the mission down the street
Sang "Amazing Grace" and nobody cried
Except some lady in black way off to the side
Well we all left and she was still standing there
The black veil covering her silver hair
Ol' One-Eyed John said, " Her name is Alice
She used to be a wh* * * in Dallas
SUNG:
Let him roll, boys, let him roll
I'll bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul
Let him roll, boys, let him roll
He always thought that heaven was just a Dallas wh* * *
Let him roll, boys, let him roll
I'll bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul
Let him roll, boys, let him roll
He always thought that heaven was just a Dallas wh* * *
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