Don't much about this song except that it has been recorded by Robert Earl Keen and Tom Russell, and I have heard it a couple of Cowboy Gatherings.


SONORA'S DEATH ROW
Written by Kevin "Blackie" Farrell
As recorded by Robert Earl Keen Jr.

Me and the boys we cinched up our saddles and rode to Sonora last night,
Guns hanging proud and daring out loud for anyone looking to fight.
Card cheats and rustlers would run for their holes when the boys from the old Broken O
Rode up and reined on the street that they named Sonora's Death Row.

Mescal is free at Amanda's saloon for the boys from the old Broken O.
Saturday nights in the town of Sonora are the best in all Mexico.
They've got guitars and trumpets and sweet senoritas who won't want to let you go.
You'd never believe such a gay happy time on the street called Sonora's Death Row.

Inside Amanda's, we was a-dancing with all of Amanda's gals.
I won some silver at seven-card stud, so I was outdoing my pals,
But the whiskey and mescal, peso cigars drove me outside for some air.
Somebody whispered: "Your life or your money." I reached but my gun wasn't there.

[Instrumental break]

I woke up face down in Amanda's back alley aware of the fool I had been,
Rushed to my pony, grabbed my Winchester, and entered Amanda's again,
Where I saw my partners twirling my pistol and throwing my money around.
Blinded by anger, I jacked the lever and one of them fell to the ground.

Amanda's got silent like night in the desert; my friends stared in pure disbelief.
Amanda was kneeling beside the dead cowboy plainly expressing her grief,
And as I bowed my head, a tremble shot through me; my six-gun was still at my side.
I felt my pockets and there was my money; I fell to my knees and I cried.

A nightmare of mescal was all that it was, for no one had robbed me at all.
I wish I was dreaming the sound of the gallows they're testing just outside the wall.
The mescal's still free at Amanda's saloon for the boys from the old Broken O.
I'd give a ransom to drink there today and be free of Sonora's Death Row.
I'd give a ransom to drink there today and be free of Sonora's Death Row.