BELLE STARR

by Woody Guthrie

tune by Pete Seeger and Jack Elliot



Belle Starr, Belle Starr, tell me where you have gone

Since old Oklahoma's sand hills you did roam?

Is it Heaven's wide streets that you're tying the reins

Or single footing somewheres below



Eight lovers they say combed your waving black hair

Eight men knew the feel of your dark velvet waist

Eight men heard the sounds of your tan leather skirt

Eight men heard the bark of the guns that you wore



Cole Younger was your first and the father of your girl

And the name that you picked for your daughter was Pearl

Cole robbed a bank and he drawed the life line

But I heard he was pardoned after twenty years time



Your Cherokee love, Blue Duck was his name

He loved you in the sand hill before your great fame

I heard he stopped a bullet in 1885

And your Blue Duck's no longer alive



You took Jim Reed to your warm wedded bed

And from out of your love was born the boy, Ed

A pal killed Jim Reed by the dark of the moon

And your son Ed was blowed down in a drunken saloon



Then there was Bob Younger, you loved him well

He rode with the James boys out down the long trail

They caught him in Minnesota along with the gang

He died down in jail in the cell or the chain



You loved Mr. William Clarke Quantrill

And his Civil War guerrillas in the Missouri hills

He hit Lawrence Kansas and fought them still

And when he rode out, two hundred lay killed



They say could have, they whispered you might

Have loved Frank James on a couple of nights

He fought the Midland Railroad almost to death

Then in 1915 Frank drawed his last breath



They say it could be, they say maybe so

That you loved Jesse James, that desperado

Jesse got married, had a wife and a son

Was shot down at home by the Ford brothers' guns



Belle Starr, Belle Starr, your time's getting late

But how is Jim Younger, did you hear his fate?

He was jailed and then pardoned for all he had done

And he blowed his own brains out in nineteen and one





Eight lovers they say combed your waving black hair

Eight men knew the feel of your dark velvet waist

Eight men heard the sounds of your tan leather skirt

Eight men heard the bark of the guns that you wore

Belle Starr, Belle Starr, tell me where you have gone

Since old Oklahoma's sand hills you did roam?

Is it Heaven's wide streets that you're tying the reins

Or single footing somewheres below



@outlaw @west @America

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