Sonora's Death Row

Mescal is free in Amanda's saloon

For the boys from the old broken home

Saturday nights in the town of Sonora

Are the best in all Mexico

They got guitars and trumpets and sweet señoritas

Who won't want to let you go

You'd never believe such a happy town

Had a street called Sonora's death row

Inside Amanda's we were all dancing

With six of Amanda's gals

I won some silver at seven card stud

So I was out doing my pal

But the whiskey and mescal and peso cigars

Drove me outside for some air

Somebody whispered "Your life or your money!"

I reached but my gun wasn't there

I woke up face down in Amanda's back alley

Aware of the fool I had been

Rushed to a saddle and grabbed someone's rifle

And entered Amanda's again

Where I saw my partners twirling my pistol

And throwing my money around

Blinded by anger, I jacked the lever

And one of them fell to the ground

Amanda's got silent like night in the desert

My friends stared in pure disbelief

Amanda was kneeling beside the dead cowboy

Plainly expressing her grief

And as I bowed my head a tremble shot through me

My pistol was still at my side

I felt my pockets and there was my money

I fell to my knees and I cried

A nightmare of mescal was all that it was

No one had robbed me at all

I wish I was dreaming, the sound of the gallows

They're testing just outside the wall

And the mescal's still free in Amanda's saloon

For the boys from the old broken home

I'd pay a ransom to drink there today

And be free of Sonora's death row