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From:
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Tom Ames Prayer
by Steve Earle
Everyone in Nacodoches
Knew Tom Ames would come to a bad end
Cause the sheriff caught him
Stealin chickens and such by the time he was ten
One day his Daddy took a ten dollar bill
And tucked it in his hand
He said I know you re headed for trouble son
Your Momma wouldn t understand
So he took his Dad s money and his brother s old bay
He left without a word of thanks
He fell in with this crowd in some border town
And he took to robbing banks
Outside the law his luck a- run out fast
A few years came and went
Til he s trapped in an alley in Abilene
With all but four shells spent
And he realized prayin was the only thing
That he hadn t ever tried
Well he wasn t sure he quite knew how
But he looked up to the sky
He said you don t owe me nothin and as far as I know Lord
I don t owe nothin to you
I ain t askin for a miricle Lord
Just a little bit of luck will do
You know I ain t never prayed before
Cause it always seemed to me
That prayin s the same as beggin Lord
I don t take no charity
but right now Lord with my back to the wall
I can t help but recall
How they nearly hung me for stealin a horse
In Fort Smith, Arkansas
Judge Parker said guilty and the gavel came down
Just like a cannon shot
I went away quietly
I began to file a plot
They sent the preacher down to my cell
He said the Lord s your only hope
He s the only friend you re gonna have son
When you hit the end of Parker s rope
And I guess he could have kept preachin till Christmas
but he turned his back on me
I put a homemade blade to that golden throat
Asked the deputy for the key
It ain t the first trouble I ve seen before
As you already know
I ve had some help from you Lord and the Devil himself s
been strictly touch and go
Yeah but who in the hell am I talkin to
There ain t no one here but me
So he ed both his pistols and he spit in the dirt
And he walked out into that street
