Let Him Roll

Let him roll, Lord, let him roar
He always said that heaven was just a Dallas whore

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 put that look in his eye
That 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 said, "Every single day it gets"
Just a little bit harder to handle and yet
And he lost the thread, and his mind got cluttered
And the words just rolled off down in the gutter

He was elevator man in a cheap hotel
In exchange for the rent on a one room cell
And he was old in years, beyond his time
Oh, thanks to the world and the white Port wine

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

He could cut through the years to the very night
That it all ended in a whore house fight
And 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 fightin' the weather
And too many nights of not being together
So he died

And when they went through all his personal affects
In among the stubs from the welfare checks
Was a crumblin' picture of a girl in a door
And an address in Dallas and nothin' 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 coverin' her silver hair
And ol' one-eyed John said her name was Alice
She used to be a whore in Dallas

Let him roar, Lord, let him roll
I bet he's gone to Dallas, rest his soul
Let him roll, 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