Jesse Justice - Joe Ely

Well Jesse was a rovin' gambler

Nine ball was his game

He kept one step out ahead of his Rep

One town out ahead of his fame

I think I mighta seen him in Clovis

But the place was kinda loud

Even so, it was a long time ago

When my head sorta stayed in a cloud

There’s a lotta green in the city

That you can’t cut thick or thin

There’s a lot of green between fat and lean

That you might never see again, Oh, Jesse

You might never see again

Well I KNOW I saw him in Shreveport

The time this song’s about

I was hangin' in town 'cause the river was down

Like my sister I was sweatin' the drought

He was playin' some kid from Dallas

Who could out talk a freeway cop

A day and a half they’d been on a raft

Tryin' to play till the other would drop

There’s a lotta green in the city

That you can’t cut thick or thin

There’s a lot of green between fat and lean

That you might never see again, Oh, Jesse

You might never see again

Carmen wore a red silk dress

She lean’d beside the coke machine

She must have been the prize that was in his eyes

It was as clear as gasoline

Twenty seven hundred on the table

Another twenty five in the dark

Dallas was talkin' up a blue streak

As Jesse reached for the chalk

The room got deathly quiet

The newsboy shut his mouth

The cold north wind changed it’s mind again

And blew lazy from the south

The whippoorwills quit singin'

Not even the judge did laugh

When Jesse Justice chalked his saber

And sliced the 9 in half

There’s a lotta green in the city

That you can’t cut thick or thin

There’s a lot of green between fat and lean

That you might never see again, Oh, Jesse

You might never see again