Sonora's Death Row - Leo Kottke

Me and the boy’s we cinched up our saddles

And rode to Sonora last night

Gun’s hanging proud, daring out loud

For anyone looking to fight

Card cheats and rustlers would run for their holes

When the boys from the old broken O

Rode up and reined on the street that they named

Sonora’s death row

Mescal is free at Amanda’s saloon

For the boy’s from the old broken O

Saturday nights in the town of Sonora

Are the best in all Mexico

They’ve got guitars and trumpets and sweet senoritas

Who won’t want to let you go

You’d never believe such a gay happy time

On the street called Sonora’s death row

Inside Amanda’s we was a dancin'

With all of Amanda’s gals

I won some silver at seven card stud

So I was out doin' my pals

But the whiskey and mescal, peso cigars

Drove me outside for some air

Somebody whispered, «Your life or your money

I reached, but my gun wasn’t there»

I woke up face down in Amanda’s back alley

Aware of the fool I had been

Rushed to my pony, grabbed my Winchester

And entered Amanda’s again

Where I saw my partners twirling my pistols

And throwing my money around

Blinded by anger, I jacked the lever

And one of them fell to the ground

Amanda’s got silent like night in the desert

My friends stared in pure disbelief

Amanda was kneeling beside the dead cowboy

Plainly expressing her grief

And as I bowed my head a trembled shot through me

My six-gun was still at my side

I felt my pockets, there was my money

I fell to my knees and I cried

A nightmare of mescal is all that it was

For no one had robbed me at all

I wish I was dreaming the sound of the gallows

They’re testing just outside the wall

And the mescal’s still free at Amanda’s saloon

For the boy’s from the old broken O

I’d give a ransom to drink there today

Be free of Sonora’s death row

Yes I’d give a ransom to drink there today

Be free of Sonora’s death row