John Wilkes Booth - Tony Rice

John Wilkes Booth was a southern man

Born of an actor in Maryland

Bound for fortune on a gas-lit stage

Bound to die at a tender age

Washington to Baltimore

He played the bills and he slept with whores

And he burned inside with a hatred deep

For the man who caused the south to weep

Young Abe Lincoln wasn’t young no more

Tired old man when he won the war

And he dreamed at night of his death by the hands

Of the bitter world and a faceless man

And he saw his body in a ghastly dream

Draped in black while his widow screamed

Two silver dollars on his eyelids lay

Abraham Lincoln has died today

And they said there were five and they said there were ten

Some say there was never more than just one man

Oh, it’s awful to see Mr. Lincoln dead

In the name of God and Dixie, in the name of God and Dixie Land

John Wilkes Booth and his band of men

They’d failed before but would try again

When Good Friday dawned with a fickle sun

Then Booth declared the day had come

And the word was passed and the guns were brought

Down to Mary Sarrat’s boarding house

Sealed in a note, Booth named just four

But the gallows would sway with many more

And they said there were five and they said there were ten

Some say there was never more than just one man

Oh, it’s awful to see Mr. Lincoln dead

In the name of God and Dixie, in the name of God and Dixie Land

John Wilkes Booth went to his grave

With a bullet in his neck and a broken leg

A patriot and his fantasy

Of redemption, grace and bravery

And those who were hanged and those who spent

Their lives behind a jailer’s fence

Only Booth could have proved them free

Of the taint of the conspiracy

For they said there were five and they said there were ten

Some said there was never more than just one man

Oh, it’s awful to see Mr. Lincoln dead

In the name of God and Dixie, in the name of God and Dixie Land

In the name of God and Dixie, in the name of God and Dixie Land