The Dying Crapshooter's Blues - Blind Willie McTell

Little Jesse was a gambler, night and day

He used crooked cards and dice

Sinful guy, good hearted but had no soul

Heart was hard and cold like ice

Jesse was a wild reckless gambler

Won a gang of change

Altho' a many gambler’s heart he led in pain

Began to spend a-loose his money

Began to be blue, sad and all alone

His heart had even turned to stone

What broke Jesse’s heart while he was blue and all alone

Sweet Lorena packed up and gone

Police walked up and shot my friend Jesse down

Boys i got to die today

He had a gang of crapshooters and gamblers at his bedside

Here are the words he had to say:

Guess I ought to know

Exactly how I wants to go

(How you wanna go, Jesse?)

Eight crapshooters to be my pallbearers

Let 'em be veiled down in black

I want nine men going to the graveyard, bubba

And eight men comin back

I want a gang of gamblers gathered 'round my coffin-side

Crooked card printed on my hearse

Don’t say the crapshooters’ll never grieve over me

My life been a doggone curse

Send poker players to the graveyard

Dig my grave with the ace of spades

I want twelve polices in my funeral march

High sheriff playin' blackjack, lead the parade

I want the judge and solic’ter who jailed me 14 times

Put a pair of dice in my shoes (then what?)

Let a deck of cards be my tombstone

I got the dyin' crapshooter’s blues

Sixteen real good crapshooters

Sixteen bootleggers to sing a song

Sixteen racket men gamblin'

Couple tend bar while i’m rollin' along

He wanted 22 womens outta the Hampton Hotel

26 off-a South Bell

29 women outta North Atlanta

Know little Jesse didn’t pass out so swell

His head was achin', heart was thumpin'

Little Jesse went to hell bouncin' and jumpin'

Folks, don’t be standin' around ole Jesse cryin'

He wants everybody to do the charleston whilst he dyin'

One foot up, a toenail dragging

Throw my buddy Jesse in the hoodoo wagon

Come here mama with that can of booze

The dyin crapshooter’s — leavin' the world

The dyin' crapshooter’s — goin' down slow

With the dyin' crapshooter’s blues