Steve Earle — Tom Ames Prayer

Everyone in Nacadoches knew Tom Ames Would come to some bad end Well the Sheriff had caught him stealing chickens and such By the time that he was ten And one day, his daddy took a ten dollar bill And he tucked it in his hand He said, "I can tell you're headed for trouble, son And your mama wouldn't understand" So he took that money and his brothers old bay And he left without a word of thanks Fell in with a crowd in some border town Took to robbing banks Well, outside the law your luck will run out fast And a few years came and went Until he's trapped in an alley in Abilene With all but four shells spent And he realized praying was the only thing That he hadn't ever tried Well, he wasn't sure he knew quite how But he looked up to the sky Said, "You don't owe me nothing and as far as I know Lord, don't owe nothing to You And I ain't asking for a miracle, Lord Just a little bit of luck will do And You know I ain't never prayed before But it always seemed to me If praying is the same as begging, Lord I don't take no charity" Yeah, but right now, Lord, with my back to the wall Can't help but recall How they nearly hung me for stealing a horse In Fort Smith, Arkansas Judge Parker said, "Guilty!" And the gavel came down just like a cannon shot And I went away quietly And I began to file and plot Well they sent the preacher down to my cell He said, 'The Lord is your only hope He's the only friend that you going to have When you hit the end of Parker's rope' Well, I guess he could have kept on preaching till Christmas But he turned his back on me I put a homemade blade to that golden throat And asked the deputy for the key" "Well, it ain't the first close call I ever had I'm sure you already know I had some help from you, Lord, and the Devil himself It's been strictly touch and go" Yeah, but who in the hell am I talking to? There ain't no one here but me And then he cocked both his pistols and he spit in the dirt And he walked out in the street