Glenn Ohrlin, on his A Cowboy's Life CD, tells about the old Pickwick Bar down in the river bottoms in Burbank California where cowboys would gather back in the '40s, where one of the bartenders, Tommy Coates, who also worked in pictures, doing stunts: "Sometimes when the sign was just right he'd jump on top of the bar and sing Ace in the Hole."

This town is full of guys who think they're mighty wise
Just because they know a thing or two
You can see them everyday goin' up and down Broadway
Telling all the wonders that they do.
There's con men and there's boosters. There's card sharps and crap shooters
They congregate around the metropole
They wear fancy ties and collars, but where they get those dollars
Well that's their old Ace in the Hole

Some of them write to the old folks for coin
That's their old Ace in the Hole
Others have girls in the old tenderloin
That's their old Ace in the Hole
They like to tell you 'bout the trips they're going to make
From Florida to that old North Pole
But their names would be mud
Like a chump playin' stud
If they lost that old Ace in the Hole

Now the more you hang around anywhere in this old town
The more you see that what I say is true
They'll greet you with a smile, but you know all the while
They're just trying to pull something new
You always hear them tellin' 'bout lemons that they're sellin'
They spend a hundred bucks a day for clothes
But you know that they're lyin' it's the aces does the buyin'
And dress them from their heads down to their toes

cho
Some of them write to the old folks for coin
That's their old Ace in the Hole
Others have girls in the old tenderloin
That's their old Ace in the Hole
They like to tell you 'bout the money that they spend
They tell you 'bout their influential friends
They're not extra wise, they're just ordinary guys
But they've got that old Ace in the Hole.