South Coast - Tom Russell

My name is Juanano de Castro

My father was a Spanish Grandee

But I won my wife in a card game

To hell with those lords o’er the sea

Well the South Coast is wild coast and lonely

You might win in a game at Cholon

But a lion still rules the Barranca

And a man there is always alone

I played in a card game at Jolon

I played there with an outlaw named Juan

And after I’d taken his money

I staked all against his daughter Dawn

I picked up the ace… l had won her

My heart it was down at my feet

Jumped up to my throat in a hurry

Like a young summer’s day she was sweet

He opened the door to the kitchen

And he called the girl out with a curse

Saying «Take her, Goddamn her, you’ve won her

She’s yours now for better or worse»

Her arms had to tighten around me

As we rode down the hills to the south

Not a word did I hear from her that day

Nor a kiss from her pretty young mouth

But that was a gay happy winter

We carved on a cradle of pine

By the fire in that neat little cabin

And I sang with that gay wife of mine

Well the South Coast is wild coast and lonely

You might win in a game at Cholon

But a lion still rules the Barranca

And a man there is always alone

That night I got hurt in a landslide

Crushed hip and twice broken bone

She saddled her pony like lightning

And rode off for the doctor in Cholon

The lion screamed in the Barranca

Buck, he bolted and he fell on his side

My young wife lay dead in the moonlight

My heart died that night with my bride

Well the South Coast is wild coast and lonely

You might win in a game at Cholon

But a lion still rules the Barranca

And a man there is always alone