McMurtry - Lights of Cheyenne

Hadn't heard this one in a while. Classic McMurtry phrasing. This version from the Live Aught Three album sets a lofty standard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0tuOJV8nfE

Look off down the highway at the glittering lights

Like windshield glass on the shoulder tonight

As the diesels come grinding on up from the plains

All bunched up like pearls on a string

And I guess time don't mean nothin', not nothin' at all

And out on the horizon the broken stars fall

Old broken stars they fall down on the land

And get mixed together with the lights of Cheyenne

Well I've been up all night and I'm down on my back

Workin' the counter to take up the slack

'Cause the money tree's light and the whiskey stream's low

You ain't worked a week since July

You say the gravel pit's hiring, after the first

But you don't have the nature for that kind of work

You might get hired on, but you won't make a hand

And I'll still be here lookin' at the lights of Cheyenne

You stand in the sky with your feet on the ground

Never suspectin' a thing

But if the sky were to move you might never be found

Never be heard from again

We go on good behavior when our youngest comes home

She comes up from Boulder but she never stays long

And that oldest still fights me like she was 18

Stopped in for a 6-pack awhile ago and she's got a cowboy problem

And this last one's a sight

All dressed up like Gunsmoke for Saturday night

And they were off to the bars for lack of a plan

Racing the stars to the lights of Cheyenne

And you've kept all that meanness inside you so long

You'd fight with a fence post if it looked at your wrong

Well the post won't hit back, and it won't call the law

I look at your right, or I don't look at all

Now take a crumpled up soft pack and give it a shake

Out by the dumpster on a cigarette break

With one eye swelled up from the back of your hand

And the other eye fixed on the lights of Cheyenne

You stand in the sky with your feet on the ground

Never suspectin' a thing

But if the sky were to move you might never be found

Never be heard from again

Now there's antelope grazing in range of my gun

Come opening weekend you won't see a one

They'll vanish like ghosts 'cause somehow they know

But now they're up to the fence in the early dawn

And it's warming up nicely for this time of year

The creeks are still frozen but the roads are all clear

And I don't have it in me to make one more stand

Though I never much cared for the lights of Cheyenne