Let Him Roll Lyrics - Old No. 1 - Guy Clark

He's a wino, tried and true. 

Done about everything there is to do. 

He worked on freighters, he worked in bars. 

He worked on farms, 'n he worked on cars. 

It was white port, that put that look in his eye 

That grown men get when they need to cry 

And he sat down on the curb to rest 

And his head just fell down on his chest 

He said "Every single day it gets 

A little bit harder to handle and yet" 

And he lost the thread and his mind got cluttered 

And the words just rolled off down in the gutter 

Well he was elevator man in a cheap hotel 

In exchange for the rent on a one room cell 

He's old in years beyond his time 

Thanks to the world, and the white Port wine 

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

He said, "Life for you has just begun" 

And he told me a story that I heard before 

How he fell in love with a Dallas whore 

Well he could cut through the years to the very night 

When it ended, in a whore house fight 

And she turned his last proposal down 

In favor of being a girl about town 

Now it's been seventeen years right in line 

And he ain't been straight none of the time 

Too many days of fightin' the weather 

And too many nights of not being together 

So he died 

Well when they went through his personal affects 

In among the stubs from the welfare checks 

Was a crumblin' picture of a girl in a door 

An address in Dallas, and nothin' more 

The welfare people provided the priest 

A couple from the mission down the street 

Sang Amazing Grace, and no one cried 

'Cept some woman in black, way off to the side 

We all left and she was standing there 

Black veil covering her silver hair 

And 'ol One-Eyed John said her name was Alice 

And she used to be a whore in Dallas 

Let him roar, Lord let him roll 

Bet he's gone to Dallas Rest his soul 

Lord, let him roll, Lord let him roar 

He always said that heaven 

Was just a Dallas whore.