"Gypsy Queens Will Play Your Grand Finale": More Ruminations on Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan and Band will be performing at a number of venues in the metropolitan area in August, although Prospect Park is the only NYC location. Bob may have rankled under the mantle placed upon him as "spokesman for his generation" etc., but there is one appellation that has to stick -- he is a musical legend, hardworking touring musician and the quintessential interpreter and reinterpreter of American Music. Whether it is folk, R&B, jazz, rock n roll, bluegrass, country & western, minstrelsy, cowboy, or any other forms of American popular music, he has explored it, and may be why he is so endlessly, musically creative and listenable. His ability to reinvent and change direction creatively, investigate and take risks in new forms, in itself, is inspirational.

Here, a lyric from the classic Sam Peckinpah film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson, featuring Bob Dylan as knife-wielding, stock boy "Alias", with a great soundtrack featuring classic songs by Bob Dylan drawing from music of the American west..


BILLY 4 (from the soundtrack "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid")

There's guns across the river about to pound you
There's a lawman on your trail like to surround you
Bounty hunters are dancing all around you
Billy, they don't like you to be so free.

Camping out all night on the verandah
Walking in the streets down by the hacienda
Up to Boot Hill THEY'D like to send you
Billy, don't you turn your back on me.

There's mills inside the minds of crazy faces
Bullet holes and rifles in their cases
There is always one more notchin' for more aces
Billy, and you're playing all alone.

Playing around with some sweet SENORITA
Into her dark chamber she will greet you
In the shadows of the maizes she will lead you
Billy, and you're going all alone.

They say that Pat Garrett's got your number
So sleep with one eye open, when you wander
IF every little sound just might be thunder
Thunder from the barrel of his gun.

There's always another stranger sneaking glances
Some trigger-happy fool willing to take chances
Some old whore from San Pedro'll make advances
Advances on your spirit and your soul.

The businessmen from Taos want you to go down
So they've hired mister Garrett, he'll force you to slow down
Billy, don't let it make you feel so low down
To be hunted by the man who was your friend.

So hang on to your woman, if you got one
Remember in El Paso once you shot one
I'll be in Santa Fe about one
Billy, you've been running for so long.

Gypsy queens will play your grand finale
Way down in some Tularosa alley
Maybe in La Rio Pecas valley
Billy, you're so far away from home
Billy, you're so far away from home

Copyright 1972 Ram's Horn Music