Ry Cooder - Jesse James Lyrics
(neil morris)I'll tell you about jesse and frank jamesMy grandfather was personally acquainted with themMy grandfather lived in the southern edge of baxter county, arkansasAnd they stayed all night with him lots of nightsAnd my grandfather told me there was a lot of those robberies that was layed to jesse and frank jamesAnd he knew they didn't do it 'cause they was at his place when it happenedBut you couldn't tell the public thatWhen they get their minds made up that somebody's done somethingWhy the public's gonna stick to it anywayMy grandfather, he knew them as boysAnd they could come to his place and go without anybody paying attention 'cause nobody expected themDown in arkansas, see, 'cause they was from missouriNow that's the story that my grandfather told me when i was just a boyAnd he said that frank james, at that world's fair,I think it was 1901 in st. louis him and jesse were both thereMy grandfather and frank james were together thereAnd that frank james offered to bring jesse there aliveHe said that the man that the ford boys killed wasn't jesse james at allBut the fellow they killed was just about the size of jesse and he was red headedAnd he wasn't any relation to the fordsSee, jesse james was a known cousin to charles and bob fordThat's what my grandfather saidHe said jesse and frank were not even in that part of the country when that fellow was killedAnd the ford boys, why, they collected a thousand dollars for killing jesse james!Now the song says that the ford boys killed jesseNone of us up here in the mountains believe that, no sir!
