Dying Crapshooter's Blues

Little Jesse was a gambler, night and day

Well 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, he won a gang of change

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

When he began to spend and lose his money

He began to be blue and all alone

But boys, 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 gotta die today

He had a gang of crapshooters and gamblers at his bedside

Here are the words he had to say

"I guess I ought to know

Exactly how I want 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, buddy

And eight men comin' back

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

A 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 solicitor who jailed me fourteen times

Put a pair of dice in my shoes, and what else?

Let a deck of cards be my tombstone, buddy

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 twenty-two womens outta the Hampton Hotel

Twenty-six off South Bell

Twenty-nine women outta North Atlanta

Know that Jessie didn't pass out so swell

And his head was achin', heart was thumpin'

Little Jesse went down bouncing and jumping

Folks don't be standin' round Jesse cryin'

He wants everybody to do the Charleston whilst he dies

One foot up and a toenail dragging

Throw my friend Jesse in the hoodoo wagon

Come here, mama, with that can of booze

The dying crapshooter's blues I mean

The dying crapshooter's blues