The Old San Antonio Road

We camped on the Blanco at twilight,
While a red sun was just going down,
Somebody pulled out a French harp and played,
And we passed Hondo’s bottle around,
And we talked of the best days the world’s ever known,
Good men, living free, on their own,
And a broken wind sighed in the twisted old trees,
On the old San Antonio Road

In the distance a freight train was passing,
and its call set a still night on fire,
And someone asked Hondo to tell of the land,
Before she got cut up by wire,
So he talked of a land that was free as her breeze,
Before the big cities had grown,
And a broken wind sighed in the twisted old trees,
On the old San Antonio Road,

Then old Hondo, he used his bandana,
And he swore that he had a bad cold,
Said the smoke from the campfire had made his eyes run,
That’s a sure sign a man’s gettin’ old,
Then he just rambled on ’bout his good-bad old days,
And the Model-T cowboys he’d known,
And the God-fearing women in corsets and stays,
And his old San Antonio road,

On the new San Antonio freeway,
All the diesel horns shatter the dawn,
Their exhaust kills the leaves on the twisted old trees,
And I don’t go back much, now he’s gone,
There’s the howl of the sirens and the scream of the cars,
And the cans and the bottles they’ve thrown,
Guess it’s good he ain’t here, just to see how things are,
On his old San Antonio Road.

© Tim Henderson 1976