Let Him Roll

Now 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

There was white port that put that look in his eye
Grown men get when they need to cry
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 an 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"
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
When 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 days of fighting the weather
And too many nights of not being together
So he died

When they went through his personal effects
In among the stubs from the welfare checks
Was a crumbling 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
Except some lady in black way off to the side

We all left and she was standing there
The black veil covering her silver hair
And old one-eyed John said, "Her name was Alice
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