Rhymes Of The Renegades

(album: Cowboy Songs III: Rhymes Of The Renegades - 1993)

If you listen close when the hot wind blows
Down the dust filled streets of old tombstone
You might hear an old rhyme ringing
Of the legends who walked in their long black coats
And their high top boots and their .45 colts
Right in to this song I'm singing
That the ballad mongers made
Into the rhymes of the renegades

Way up in Dakota by the deadwood moon
Wild Bill's ghost haunts number 10 saloon
Where a coward came to get him
Bill held a dead man's hand of aces and eights
With his back to the door he tempted fate
Old Bill never knew what hit him
Gambling his life away
To the rhymes of the renegades

And in all of the towns too tough to die
They're dancing up on Boot Hill tonight
Laughing at the movies Hollywood made
Dancing to the rhymes of the renegades
And Billy the Kid is laughing right out loud
At how they turned him into a hero somehow
Who'll cast a third stone at his well known grave
While chanting these rhymes of the renegades

Way out in California by a long dark bend
And a mask and duster blowing in the wind
Black Bart still stands there waiting
And out in El Paso the thunder cloud rolls
Like John Wesley Hardin's guns long ago
And the west still loves to hate him
For his legend will not fade
From the rhymes of the renegades

And all of the robbers who rode through hell
And danced on the rope when the gallows fell
Their demons are still with us
And the vigilantes do more evil than good
When they masquerade around like robin hood
And they ride at night to get us
From the owl hoot trails the shades
Come the rhymes of the renegades

And could it be true that some become outlaws
Holding on to the last to a long lost cause
Digging their grave with a silver spade
Singing rhymes and rhymes to the renegades
Some call it a mystery when waco burns
From history they refuse to learn
They turn their backs 'till the movie deal's made
Deaf to the rhymes of the renegades

They'll burn down up to heaven and stay
Cause the raid out laws on the churches and banks
They enforce the laws that where tailor made
They won't hear the rhymes of the renegades
They ignore the dark side of humanity
They're living the illusion that were all free
They'll never know how many could be saved
From the lessons and the rhymes of the renegades