Tom Ames` Prayer — текст песни (Keen Robert Earl)

Everyone in Nacogdoches
Knew Tom Ames would come to some bad end
`Cause the sheriff caught him
Stealin` chickens and such by the time that he was ten
One day his daddy took a ten-dollar bill
He tucked it in his hand
He said I know that you`re headed for trouble son
Your Momma wouldn`t understand
So he took his Dad`s money and his brother`s old bay
He left without a word of thanks
He fell in with this crowd in some border town
And he took to robbin` banks
Outside the law his luck had run out fast
A few years came and went
`Til he`s trapped in an alley in Abilene
With all but four shells spent
And he realized prayin` was the only thing
That he hadn`t ever tried
Well he wasn`t sure that he knew quite how
But he looked up to the sky
He said: You don`t owe me nothin` and as far as I know Lord
I don`t owe nothin` to you
I ain`t askin` for a miracle Lord
Just a little bit o` luck will do
You know I ain`t never prayed before
`Cause it always seemed to me
That prayin`s the same as beggin` Lord
I don`t take no charity
But right now Lord with my back to the wall
I can`t help but recall
How they nearly hung me for stealin` a horse
In Fort Smith, Arkansas
Judge Parker said guilty and the gavel came down
Just like a cannon shot
I went away quietly
I began to file a plot
They sent the preacher on down to my cell
He said the Lord is your only hope
He`s the only friend you`re gonna have son
When you hit the end of Parker`s rope
And I guess he could`ve kept on preachin` till Christmas
But he turned his back on me
I put a homemade knife to that golden throat
Asked the deputy for the key
It ain`t the first trouble I`ve seen before
As you already know
I`ve had some help from you Lord and the Devil himself`s
Been strictly touch and go
Yeah but who in the hell am I talkin` to
There ain`t no one here but me
So he cocked both his pistols and he spit in the dirt
And he walked out into that street