Lyr Req: Angels Can Do No More (Andy Wilkinson)

Subject: Lyr Req: 'Angels could do no more' lyrics
From: GUEST,heferwiz
Date: 01 Mar 03 - 01:19 AM

Looking for lyrics by Andy Wilkinson, western folk song writer.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Angels could do no more' lyrics
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 02:22 AM

The correct title is "Angels Can Do No More" and it appears on Andy Wilkinson's album "Deep in the Heart" (1992), and on his 2-CD set "Storyteller" (1997). It is also performed by Dark Horse on the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society compilation "A Collection of Songs from 'Bands on Call'".

I couldn't find any lyrics or sound samples.

Subject: Lyr Add: ANGELS CAN DO NO MORE (Andy Wilkinson)
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 12:53 AM

GUEST,heferwiz--

Here you go.

Isn't Andy great? My sister-in-law introduced me to his music only a few months ago and I've been listening to the two albums I have a lot ("Texas When Texas Was Free", and "Deep in the Heart"). She said her sons brought a CD home from college at Texas Tech in Lubbock TX, where Andy teaches, from a concert he did there. The man's songs certainly speak to everyone who has ever lived on the prairie. This one brings tears to my eyes (my son's name was Sammy, and he also died young). I also like "Tumbleweed Christmas Tree" and the title song for "Texas When Texas Was Free." Hey, the Panhandle still looks like you could take one step and be back a hundred years ago (if you ignore the barbed wire fences).

Lin in Kansas (but raised in Texas)

________________________

Andy says, in the liner notes from "Deep in the Heart":
    John Fischer, in his book From the High Plains, tells of the grave of a young cowboy found on the banks of the Salt Fork of the Red River on the old Rockin' Chair ranch. A board, apparently taken from a wagon, stood as its marker, upon which a running iron had been used to burn this epitaph: "Sammy done his damnedest, Angels can do no more." This song is for Sammy and the cowboys who buried him there.

ANGELS CAN DO NO MORE
By Andy Wilkinson

We laid young Sammy to his rest,
Dug a deep hole, then we did our best
To say the right things as we knocked the dirt from the shovel.
So far from God and so near to a life of trouble.

No more than a boy when he died like a man,
We stood around his grave with our hats in our hands,
Leanin' first on one foot and then on the other.
Wishin' we'd a-knowed what to say to write to his mother.

CHORUS:
But there ain't much to say when a man dies young,
Before he can do what he should have done.
Leastways, the cowboys that knowed him swore,
"Sammy done his damnedest, angels can do no more."

We stared at our boots, and nobody spoke
'Til the trail boss coughed, and cleared his throat,
And said to the cook, "Tear a plank off the chuckwagon
And bring it here to mark the grave of our young companion."

So the wranglers made a fire out of dry prairie coal,
The wind fanned the flames 'til the brandin' irons glowed,
Then we burned in the wood the words we should'a been sayin',
Down on our knees like a bunch of growed men a-prayin'.

CHORUS

Now, Sammy rode hard and he never complained
Two long years on the Rockin' Chair range,
Chasin' them strays down the Salt Fork of the Red River;
Angels' and cowboys' work, it goes on forever.

And as for myself, when it's my turn to die,
I hope there's a cowhand or two standing' by
To pack down the dirt and carry the news to the family,
And say over me what we should'a said over Sammy.

CHORUS