LET HIM ROLL
Guy Clark


Well, he was wino, tried and true.
Done about everything there is to do.
He worked on freighters, an' he'd worked in bars.
He worked on farms, an' he'd worked on cars.

It was white port that put that look in his eye,
Grown men get when they need to cry.
We sat down on the curb to rest,
And his head just fell down on his chest.

He says: "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 the words just rolled off down the gutter.

Well, he was elevator man in a cheap hotel,
In exchange for the rent on a one room cell.
An' he's old: years beyond his time,
No thanks to the world, and the white port wine.

So he said: "Son." He always called me son.
Said: "Life for you has just begun."
An' then he told me the story I'd heard before
How he fell in love with a Dallas whore.

Now, 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,
He ain't been straight in none of the time.
It's too many days of fightin' the weather,
An' too many nights of not being together.
So he died.

Instrumental break.

An' when they went through his personal effects,
In among the stubs from the welfare checks,
Was a crumblin' picture of a girl in a door,
An' an address in Dallas, and nothin' more.

An' the welfare people provided the priest,
A couple from the mission down the street,
Sang "Amazing Grace", and no one cried,
'Cept some lady in black, way off to the side.

We all left and she's standing there,
A black veil covering her silver hair.
Ol' One-Eyed John said her name was Alice,
An' she used to be a whore in Dallas.

So let him roar, Lord, let him roll.
I bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul.
Just you let him roll, Lord, let him roar
He always said that heaven
Was just a Dallas whore.

Just you let him roar, Lord, let him roll.
I bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul.