James McMurtry - Lights of Cheyenne Lyrics

Look off down the highway

at the glittering lights

Like windshield glass

on the shoulder tonight

As the diesels come

grinding on up from the plains

All bunched up like pearls on a string

And I guess time don't mean nothin'

Not nothin' at all

And out on the horizon

the broken stars fall

Old broken stars they

fall down on the land

And get mixed together

with the lights of Cheyenne

Well I've been up all night

and I'm down on my back

Workin' the counter

to take up the slack

'Cause the money tree's light

and the whiskey stream's low

You ain't worked a week

since July

You say the gravel pit's hiring

After the first

But you don't have the

nature for that kind of work

You might get hired on

But you won't make a hand

And I'll still be here lookin'

at the lights of Cheyenne

You stand in the sky

with your feet on the ground

Never suspectin' a thing

But if the sky were to

move you might never be found

Never be heard from again

We go on good behavior when

our youngest comes home

She comes up from Boulder

but she never stays long

And that oldest still fights

me like she was 18

Stopped in for a 6-pack awhile ago

And she's got a cowboy problem

And this last one's a sight

All dressed up like Gunsmoke

for Saturday night

And they were off to the bars

for lack of a plan

Racing the stars to the lights of Cheyenne

And you've kept all that

meanness inside you so long

You'd fight with a fence post

if it looked at your wrong

Well the post won't hit back,

and it won't call the law

I look at your right,

or I don't look at all

Now take a crumpled up

soft pack and give it a shake

Out by the dumpster on a cigarette break

With one eye swelled up from

the back of your hand

And the other eye fixed

on the lights of Cheyenne

You stand in the sky with

your feet on the ground

Never suspectin' a thing

But if the sky were to

move you might never be found

Never be heard from again

Now there's antelope grazing

in range of my gun

Come opening weekend

you won't see a one

They'll vanish like ghosts

'cause somehow they know

But now they're up to the

fence in the early dawn

And it's warming up nicely

for this time of year

The creeks are still frozen but

the roads are all clear

And I don't have it in me

to make one more stand

Though I never much cared f

or the lights of Cheyenne