Texas Rangers - Dave Alvin

Come all ye Texas Rangers wherever you may be

I’ll tell to you a story that happened unto me

One night the age of fifteen years I joined a royal band

We marched from San Antonio unto the Rio Grande

And yet the captain told us

Perhaps he thought it right

«Before we reach the station, boys

I’m sure we’ll have to fight»

We saw the Indians coming

We heard them give their yell

My feelings at that moment

No tongue could ever tell

We saw their glittering lances

Their arrows round us hailed

My heart was sink (sic) within me

My courage almost failed

I thought of my old mother

Who in tears to me did say:

«To you they all are strangers

With me you’d better stay.»

I thought her weak and childish

And that she did not know

For I was bent on roaming

And I was bound to go

We fought them full five hours

Before the fight gave o’er

Three hundred of our soldiers

Lay weltering in their gore

Three hundred noble rangers

As ever trod the West

We laid them by their comrades

Sweet peace to be their rest

Perhaps you have a mother

Likewise a sister too

And maybe so a sweetheart

To weep and mourn for you

If this should be your condition

And you are bound to roam

I advise you from experience

You’d better stay at home