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.