Let Him Roll Songtext
von Guy Clark

He was a wino tried and true
Done about everything there is to do
He worked on freighters and he worked in bars
He worked on farms and he worked on cars
It was white port that put that look in his eye
That grown men get when they need to cry
We′d sat down on the curb to rest
And his head just fell down on his chest
He said, "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

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


He said, "Son"—he always called me son
He said, "Life for you has just begun"
Then he told me the story that I had heard before
How he fell in love with a Dallas whore

He could cut through the years to the very night
That it ended in a whorehouse fight
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
It's too many years of fighting the weather
And too many nights of not being together
So he died

And when they went through his personal effects
In among the stubs from the welfare checks
Was a crumbling picture of a girl and 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 standing there
Black veil covering silver hair
And old one-eyed John said her name was Alice
She used to be a whore in Dallas

So let him roll, Lord, let him roll
Bet he′s gone to Dallas, rest his soul
Just you let him roll, Lord, let him roar
He always said that heaven was just a Dallas whore
Let him roll, Lord, let him roll
Bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul