Let Him Roll

Now he was a wino, tried and true

Done about everything there is to do

He'd worked on freighters and he'd worked in bars

And he'd worked on farms and he'd worked on cars

It was white port that put that look in his eye

Grown men get when they need to cry

And we sat down on the curb to rest

And his head just fell down on his chest

He says, "Every single day it gets

Just a little bit harder to handle and yet"

Then he lost the thread and his mind got cluttered

And the words just rolled off down the gutter

Well, he was elevator man in a cheap hotel

In exchange for the rent on a one room cell

And he was old years beyond his time

No thanks to the world and the white port wine

So he said, "Son", he always called me son

He said, "Life for you has just begun"

And then he told me the story that I'd heard before

How he fell in love with a Dallas whore

Well, he could cut through the years to the very night

That it ended in a whorehouse fight

And she turned his last proposal down

In favor of bein' a girl about town

Now it's been seventeen years right in line

And he ain't been straight none of the time

It's too many days of fightin' the weather

And too many nights of not bein' together

So he died

And when they went through his personal effects

In among the stubs from the welfare checks

Was a crumblin' picture of a girl in a door

An address in Dallas and nothing more

The welfare people provided the priest

And a couple from the mission down the street

Sang Amazing Grace and no one cried

'Cept some lady in black way off to the side

We all left and she's standin' there

And the black veil coverin' her silver hair

And old one-eyed John said her name was Alice

And she used to be a whore in Dallas

So let him roar, Lord, let him roll

I bet he's gone to Dallas to rest his soul

Just you let him roll, Lord, let him roar

He always said that Heaven was just a Dallas whore

Let him roar, Lord, let him roll

I bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul