Brian Burns The Last Living Cowboy
Thunder comes down through the backstreets of town
as an Airflow Jet Chrysler glides by.
He sits alone behind the Custerdome
and watches the lights in the sky.
Oh, this was the wide-open prairie,
and these were the outskirts of town
before they paved over the creeks and the dirt roads
and tore all the honky-tonks down.
He's the last living cowboy,
he's a lost and lonesome refugee,
singin' whatever spirits ride through here tonight,
here's to my compadres and me.
Wide-open spaces are yesterday's news
as the world reaches out to touch the stars,
and all of the good things a Texan once knew
went out with the third world war.
He fades to a dream as the satellite sings
to the words of an old troubador,
and it takes him away on a bright summer day
to a world that isn't turning anymore.
He's the last living cowboy,
he's a lost and lonesome refugee,
singin' whatever spirits ride through here tonight,
here's to my compadres and me.
Out in the west there's a stillness tonight
as he lays down to rest his weary mind,
strange music and laughter drift out of a lonely room
from a better place in time.
