When we were asked by
RCA
Victor to make a recording in concert,
of course,
we were asked simultaneously to try to knock
some of the polish off our performance.
I feel that tonight we've succeeded
beyond their wildest expectations.
A song now that's grown out of perhaps one of the
principal cultural phenomena of our time,
the mass craving for greater
and greater
Western spectaculars and
the subsequent
switch in motivation that
we find in the villain.
Years ago the villain of course
was driven by the grossest
possible goals.
Money.
Women.
Now we see a shift in
emphasis towards a psychological
motivation.
There's no such thing as a
a bad cowpoke, only a sick one.
Gunslinger,
Gunslinger,
Gunslinger,
Gunslinger
Gunslinger,
Gunslinger, where did you go wrong?
When you were a child of the
Cheyenne and
Sioux
Refused to play nicely with you
Did you always feel you didn't belong?
Gunslinger!
You killed 130 men, old buddy
Gunslinger!
Gunslinger!
And now you wanna settle down
But other gunslingers
are a -gunning for you
And a man's gotta do what
a man's gotta do
Old buddy!
Gunslinger, gunslinger,
why you act so strange
When you were a child were
you forced to compete
With brothers that you never could beat
Did you come from a broken
home on the range?
Old buddy,
don't wear your guns in town today
Old buddy, gunslinger,
gunslinger, last night
Last night you cried out,
Mommy, dear
You got a recurrent dream in your craw
And that dream of your ma
will inhibit your draw
Oh, buddy
Oh, buddy
Oh, buddy
Yippee -aye -yay
Yippee -aye -oh
Gunslinger, gunslinger
Please take my advice
You know in your mind that
you're plum insecure
And that killin' a man is real immature
It is just an attention -get
ting divide
Gunslinger!
There you lie, dead in the dust
Old buddy
Old buddy
And now,
and now your myth begins
Out in the
West, the folks all believe
You've faced and killed
the toughest hombres
of your day
But time has exposed your feet of clay
Recent research has clearly shown that
93 .6 % of the gunmen you killed
We're simply accident
-prone gunslinger s!