The Town of Tascosa

Dream the town of Tascosa on a Saturday night,
Dream saloon girls and hide-hunters, cowhands and fights,
You’ll have to dream of the whiskey behind swingin’ doors,
‘Cause there just aint no town of Tascosa no more,
She was ‘dobe and clap-board and dust all around,
And like the bright painted women in the crib south of town,
She outlived her glory, got feeble and old,
Now it’s like Amarillo had swallowed her whole,

‘Cause there aint nothin’ left but some signs by a railroad,
And legends and stories, and lines in a song,
Like the vinegar dust, or the red blanket injun,
The town of Tascosa has picked up and gone,
Town of Tascosa’s done picked up and gone,

Comanches and Kioway, drovers and cows,
The long knives and the gunfighters, where are they now?
Like the bright dreams of children that fade in the day,
I guess they’ve all gone to Tascosa to stay,

‘Where there aint nothin’ left but some signs by a railroad,
And legends and stories, and lines in a song,
Like the vinegar dust, or the red blanket injun,
The town of Tascosa has picked up and gone,
Town of Tascosa’s done picked up and gone,

He’s the bottom of the barrel, snowy winter crowns his head,
Hell, it takes him half an hour just to get up out of bed,
After all the bones he’s broken, it’s a wonder he aint dead,
‘Stead of scrapin’ on the bottom of the barrel,

At the bottom of the barrel was an old panhandle cowboy,
Claimed he branded for the XIT and seen the buffalo,
Went to war with howlin’ injuns and survived the killin’ snow,
Now he’s scrapin on the bottom of the barrel,

At the bottom of the barrel, things have gone from bad to worse,
And you’d swear he was a cripple ‘ til you get him on his horse,
But work you can’t do from the saddle aint no fittin’ work, of course,
It’s just scrapin’ on the bottom of the barrel,

And the bottom of the barrel was an old panhandle cowboy,
Claimed he branded for the XIT and seen the buffalo,
Went to war with howlin’ injuns and survived the killin’ snow,
Now he’s scrapin on the bottom of his barrel,

And history’s the lesson, and time gives the test,
For time takes the bad ones and time takes the best,
Leaves tombstones or dry bones to mark where they fall,
But it aint left no trace of Tascosa at all,
No there aint nothin’ left but some signs by a railroad,
And legends and stories, and lines in a song,
Like the vinegar dust, or the red blanket injun,
The town of Tascosa has picked up and gone,
Town of Tascosa’s done picked up and gone.