Black Cowboys

G
Rainey Williams playground was the 
Mott Haven streets
            C                      
Where he ran past melted candles and
G
 flower wreaths
C                             G
Names and photos of young black 
faces
                D                
Whose death and blood consecrated 
      G
these places

        G
Raineys mother said Rainey stay at 
my side
         C                       G
For you are my blessing, you are my 
pride
        C                       
Its your love here that keeps my 
    G
soul alive
             D                     
I want you to come home from school
         G
 and stay inside

                 G
Rainey'd do his work and put his 
books away
                  C                
There was a channel showed a 
           G
Western movie everyday
                    C            
Lynette brought him home books on 
                          G
the black cowboys of the Oklahoma 
range
            D                      
The Seminole scouts that fought the
            G
 tribes of the Great Plains

C                 G
Summer come and the days grew long
C                            G
Rainey always had his mother's smile
 to depend on
C                      G
Along the street of stray bullets he
 made his way
Continúa después del anuncio
C                   G            
To the warmth of her arms at the 
       C  G
end of each day

G
Come the fall, the rain flooded 
these homes
       C                    G
Here in Ezekiel's valley of dry 
bones
  C                            G
It fell hard and dark to the ground
D                  G
It fell without a sound

G
Lynette took up with a man whose 
business was the boulevard
     C                             
Whose smile was fixed in a face 
               G
that was never off guard
      C                            
In the pipes 'neath the kitchen 
      G
sink his secrets he kept
      D                            
In the day, behind drawn curtains 
              G
in Lynette's bedroom he slept

C                     G
Then she got lost in the days
 C                     G
The smile Raney depended on dusted 
away
C                          G
The arms that held him were no more 
his home
D                                 
He lay at night his head pressed 
       G                  C
to her chest listening to the ghost 
in her

  G
Bones

G
In the kitchen Rainey slipped his 
hand between the pipes
         C
From a brown bag pulled five hundred
 dollar bills
       G
And stuck it in his coat side
C                       G
Stood in the dark at his mother's 
bed
         D                     G
Brushed her hair and kissed her eyes

G
In the twilight Rainey walked to the
 station on streets of stone
              C                  
Through Pennsylvania and Ohio his 
      G
train drifted on
          C                        
Through the small towns of Indiana 
      G
the big train crept
       D                           
As he lay his head back on the seat
      G
 and slept

                 G
He awoke and the towns gave way to 
muddy fields of green
          C                        
Corn and cotton and endless nothin'
     G
 in between
               C                 
Over the rutted hills of Oklahoma 
            G
the red sun slipped and was gone
         D                         
The moon rose and stripped the 
        G
earth to its bone