Don Edwards - Bronco Twisters Prayer

File info:

Don And Waddie do this one together and its about as good as it gets. Its
played to the tune of Amazing grace while waddie recites the poem. Don't
know what key they do it in, this what I came up with. You may have to play
with it a little bit, its trickier than it looks.

(C) Amazing (C7) grace (F) how sweet the (C) sound
That saved a wretch like (G) me
I (C) once was (C7) lost (F) but now I'm (C) found
Was blind but (G) now I (C) see

(C) Well it was just a little graveyard on the rollin foothill  plains (C7)
(F) Bleached by sun and summer, swept by winter snows and  rain (C)
 A little bunch of settlers had gathered on an autumn day (G)
 Around a homemade lumber coffin with their last repects to pay (C)

Weary men who'd rung their living from this hard and arid  land (C7)
(F) And beside em stood their women, faded wives with toiled worn hands (C)
 But among em was one figure who was wiry straight and  trim (G)
And everyone amongst us new him, he was the bronco twister, Jim (C)

Just a bunch of heart and muscle, tempered with a savage grit (C7)
(F) He had the reputation of a man who'd never quit (C)
Well he'd helped to build the coffin and he'd helped to dig the grave (G)
His instincts musta told him, how he's supposed to behave (C)

Well we didn't have a preacher and the crowd was mighty slim (C7)
(F) Just two women with weak voices, sang an old time funeral  hymn (C)
That was all we had for service (G)
 The old wife was sobbin for her husband of a lifetime, laid away without a
prayer (C)

Then she saw the bronco twister and she walked right up to him (C7)
(F) Put one trembling arm around him and said, pray please won't ya Jim (C)
Well you could see his figure stiffin as a look of quick surprise (G)
Shot across his swarthy features and his hard daredevil eyes (C)

Why he could handle any bronco and he never dodged a  fight (C7)
(F) It was the first time anyone had seen his face turn white (C)
But he took his large sombreo off his rough and shaggy head (G)
And how I wish I could remember what that bronco peeler said (C)

No he wasn't educated, on the range his youth was spent (C7)
(F) But the maker of creation knew exactly what he meant (C)
As he looked off toward the mountains where the driftin shadows laid (G)
Silence musta reigned in heaven when they heard ol'Jim pray (C)

Years have passed since that funeral in that little graveyard  lot (C7)
(F) But it gave us all a memory and a lot of food for thought (C)
As we stood beside this coffin with its freashly broken sod (G)
And listened to a wreckless bronco breaker talkin heart to heart with god
(C)

Well when the prayer had finally ended and the grave had all been filled
(C7)
(F) On his half unbroken pony he rode back toward the hills (C)
And we just stood there and let him, we watched him ride away (G)
For no words could ever thank him, there was nothin we could say (C)

Since we gathered at the graveyard, its been nearly fifty years (C7)
(F) With the joys and with the sorrows, with our hopes and with our fears
(C)
But I hope when I'm finished and they lay me with the dead (G)
Some cowboy says a prayer above me like that bronco twister said (C)

(ends like it starts with amazing grace)