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Dead Man's Hand Lyrics
Yellow lines in the dead of the night, oh I was heading back out west
Trying to keep my eyes open wide, I go days without any rest
Saw a line in the road looking back about twenty yards ahead
You come back from a trip to the east but you don't come back from the dead
Sure as hell he was dead as they come and he was already starting to smell
Just a kid with his hair slicked back, and a knife tucked into his belt
Was he unforgiven or just tired of living a life that never felt like his?
Though I was wondering where he is I bury him lay his soul to rest out in the dead of the night
I laid him down in a grave in the sand and he grabbed my arm with his dead man's hand
He said "I know I'm dead but I don't want to lie in a grave out here where the coyotes cry
I stare right into the endless void and I ain't going back if I got any choice
I know how to live, I don't know how to die and there ain't no prison the end goodbye
So lift me up out here my friend and I'll wander the night til the ages end"
Lit by the moon he walked through the sand and he waved goodbye with his dead man's hand
And he will roam forever until the desert
And he will roam forever until the desert
Trying to keep my eyes open wide, I go days without any rest
You come back from a trip to the east but you don't come back from the dead
Just a kid with his hair slicked back, and a knife tucked into his belt
Though I was wondering where he is I bury him lay his soul to rest out in the dead of the night
He said "I know I'm dead but I don't want to lie in a grave out here where the coyotes cry
I stare right into the endless void and I ain't going back if I got any choice
I know how to live, I don't know how to die and there ain't no prison the end goodbye
So lift me up out here my friend and I'll wander the night til the ages end"
Lit by the moon he walked through the sand and he waved goodbye with his dead man's hand
And he will roam forever until the desert
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I read a book once featuring an Old West cowboy who'd died in the 1880s in a gunfight - he was a little too slow on the drew and a little too foolish in the head - but just never quite learned how to stay dead, and still wanders the land as an undead vigilante, looking like a corpse but fighting on the side of the angels. This reminds me of that. I wish I could remember the name!