Jackie

(album: The Horses And The Hounds - 2021)

Half a section in the short grass at the foot of the plains
Grows broomweed in the dry times, ragweed when it rains
It's all she's got left that the lawyers don't claim
Jackie does her damn best, never one to complain

She's been green breaking horses when she's home from the road
Waiting on dispatch to find her a load
She leased all but the trap, ponies can't graze a thing
Another bobtail of coastal ought to last them 'til spring

There were pitchers on the tables and kids running 'round
Four generations of a blinking light town
It was the Cotton Eyed Joe or maybe just the right glance
She got to going with Randy at the Friday night dance

I just got two rules, if my conscience be known
Don't lie to me, don't bring me nothing home
Faithful's a nice word in Sunday school class
Life's just too crazy for that

Randy says not to worry, he'll feed while she's gone
She's got the Freightliner idling half up on his lawn
He don't like her driving when the northers come blue
But if the horses went hungry Lord knows what she'd do
'Round Christmas up the Caprock you can see all the towns
And the courthouses lit up for ten miles around
It's a magical time to be traveling the roads
Watch the country roll by in the halogens' glow

I just got two rules, if my conscience be known
Don't lie to me, don't bring me nothing home
Faithful's a nice word in Sunday school class
Life's just too crazy for that

She jack knifed on black ice with an oversized load
There's a white cross in the borrow ditch where she went off the road
She wasn't going that fast, the responders all say
How it ended that bad, we can wonder all day

I just got two rules, if my conscience be known
Don't lie to me, don't bring me nothing home
Faithful's a nice word in Sunday school class
Life's just too crazy for that

I just got two rules, if my conscience be known
Don't lie to me, don't bring me nothing home
Faithful's a nice word in Sunday school class
Life's just too short for all that
Life's just too short for all that
For all that