I rode by night train down to Cañon Diablo
To work on the rails and lay low for a while
But never a town here on God's holy Earth
Did drink itself drunk on such venom and bile
I made way swiftly to a bar down on Hell Street
Above it a broken sign read "Road to Ruin"
A couple of outlaws flew out into daylight
Their whiskey undrunk, left behind in the gloom
Tell Mary's harlots to stop what they're doing
And gather around to sing this song of ruin
They at once were surrounded by dozens of cowboys
Whose hands were just itching at their holstered heat
Then all in a blink of a milky crow's eyeball
That onslaught of guns thundered hell in the street
So they planted those corpses in sands red as bull's blood
Where they stiffened and bloated and bled out their wounds
Then those drunk old cowboys rode down there with shovels
Disinterring those outlaws from their cruel arid tombs
Tell all those bandits to quit what they're doing
And gather around to hear this song of ruin
"I just can't allow that a man would buy whiskey"
"And not live to drink it," said a man like a goat
"We'll give 'em what's theirs, boys, so take up that bottle."
Then I helped them pour whiskey down their slackened throats
We stood there in silence, me and that band of cowboys
As the sun climbed grotesquely like a carrion fly
That star found us sober so we left through the canyons
Two piles of rocks where those cold bodies lie
Tell all those cowboys to think what they're doing
And ponder the sorrow in this song of ruin