Here's a new song inspired by our old thread about Pancho & Lefty. Parts of it have been rattling about my brain for years but last week it all came together. No names have been changed because no one is really innocent any more:

By Charlie Ipcar, Copyright 2013
Tune: after Pancho and Lefty

The Rogue Time-Police


Em---G-----------------------------C--G
Now Charley Noble was a rov-ing blade,
D-----------------D7-------G--D
Smoke and mir-rors was his trade;
-----C--------------------------D-C
He traveled near, he travel-ed far,
G----------D—G-------D
In a man-ner most bi-zarre;
D7---C----------------------D--C
And Mark the Knife was his good friend;
G--------------C---G------Em
He was with him till the end;
---------------------C-------------G
You never know what life in-tends,
-----C------------------Em
But that's the way it goes.


Chorus:

Em—C---------------------D---C
And still the time-police-men say,
-------G-----------------C--------G
They could have had 'em any day;
Em------------C------------Em
They only let them slip a-way,
---------C----------------Em
Out of kindness, I sup-pose.


One day as they was working shift,
They heard about a time line rift;
The past was leaking like a sieve,
Was there no future left to live?
Charley cranked up the Wayback Machine,
Mark set the dial for 1013,
The present faded like a dream;
They was on the trail once more!

Waves of time went swirling by,
A kaleidoscopic tumble-dry,
Then they heard that pinging sound,
And with a jerk the Machine shut down;
Charley sprung the hatch, stepped outside,
With trusty Mark close by his side;
They gazed about all wild-eyed,
At a world beyond belief!

The landscape was in constant flow,
Hill and valley vertigo;
Rivers 'long the ridge-tops raced,
Then shot off into misty space;
Trees sprung up full grown, then died,
Dead branches stretched across the sky,
That wind from out of time screamed by,
Swirling tree trunks into dust.

Now somewhere in that surreal place,
The Great Time-Rift they had to face,
With their caulking guns deployed
They would conquer or be destroyed;
And sure enough around a bend,
They spied the Rift that they must mend;
To save the World from a sorry end,
They injected Super-Glue.

Mark was the one who made it back,
ButCharley slipped, fell through a crack,
As it opened wide in a burst of steam,
He disappeared with one long scream;
So now Mark's left to sing the blues,
While Charley's joined that cosmic stew;
There's still a future for Mark to choose,
If he can find his way.

Chorus:

And still the time-police-men say,
"We could have had 'em any day;
We only let them slip a-way,"
Out of kindness, I suppose.(2X)