Lights Of Cheyenne Lyrics - James Mcmurtry

Look off down the highway 

at the glittering lights 

Like windshield glass 

on the shoulder tonight 

As the diesels come 

grinding on up from the plains 

All bunched up like pearls on a string 

And I guess time don't mean nothin' 

Not nothin' at all 

And out on the horizon 

the broken stars fall 

Old broken stars they 

fall down on the land 

And get mixed together 

with the lights of Cheyenne 

Well I've been up all night 

and I'm down on my back 

Workin' the counter 

to take up the slack 

`Cause the money tree's light 

and the whiskey stream's low 

You ain't worked a week 

since July 

You say the gravel pit's hiring 

After the first 

But you don't have the 

nature for that kind of work 

You might get hired on 

But you won't make a hand 

And I'll still be here lookin' 

at the lights of Cheyenne 

You stand in the sky 

with your feet on the ground 

Never suspectin' a thing 

But if the sky were to 

move you might never be found 

Never be heard from again 

We go on good behavior when 

our youngest comes home 

She comes up from Boulder 

but she never stays long 

And that oldest still fights 

me like she was 18 

Stopped in for a 6-pack awhile ago 

And she's got a cowboy problem 

And this last one's a sight 

All dressed up like Gunsmoke 

for Saturday night 

And they were off to the bars 

for lack of a plan 

Racing the stars to the lights of Cheyenne 

And you've kept all that 

meanness inside you so long 

You'd fight with a fence post 

if it looked at your wrong 

Well the post won't hit back, 

and it won't call the law 

I look at your right, 

or I don't look at all 

Now take a crumpled up 

soft pack and give it a shake 

Out by the dumpster on a cigarette break 

With one eye swelled up from 

the back of your hand 

And the other eye fixed 

on the lights of Cheyenne 

You stand in the sky with 

your feet on the ground 

Never suspectin' a thing 

But if the sky were to 

move you might never be found 

Never be heard from again 

Now there's antelope grazing 

in range of my gun 

Come opening weekend 

you won't see a one 

They'll vanish like ghosts 

`cause somehow they know 

But now they're up to the 

fence in the early dawn 

And it's warming up nicely 

for this time of year 

The creeks are still frozen but 

the roads are all clear 

And I don't have it in me 

to make one more stand 

Though I never much cared f 

or the lights of Cheyenne