Ode to Blind Old Willie McTell

There's a signpost on the highway
Where the vagrants often spend
In a land of soured mentalities
From New Mexico to Jerusalem
It's where they often hung the martyrs
Near the dried up old drinking well
No one could sing them cowboy blues
Like blind old Willie McTell

Now the coyotes on the mesa
Often howl their sad lament
While old man owl is callin'
Out to the stars over his head
I can see the gypsies dancin'
Oh! they spin their tales so well
And none can sing them better
Than blind old Willie McTell

See them picking out the cotton
In the fields by finger tips
Master's sitting drinking whisky
On the docks they fill the ships
Indians are fenced in reservations
Listening to the mission bell
And none can sing it better
Than blind old Willie Mctell

Now the river boat is turning
With the good folk fast inside
Making time down the Mississippi
Before the turning of the tide
And the chain gang digging ditches
Listening to their voices swell
None can sing them blues much better
That blind old Willie McTell

I here tell God is still in heaven
Watch down upon us all
Been that way forever
Even before that fateful fall
I'm just staring out my window
From the Deadwood St. Mark Hotel
Because no one I know can sing those blues
Like blind old Willie McTell...