Don'T Laugh At Cowboys

Don’t laugh at cowboys, for most of them pay their own dues, West Texas riders put leather on your lady’s shoes, Don’t laugh at people in steel mills or shipyards or mines, They’ve earned the right to get drunk on those grocery store wines. Don’t laugh at cowboys in back of that cattlemen’s bar, They’ve earned their money, they’re proud of whoever they are, The speak plain English so clear that they sometimes offend, They’ve got no time to impress you or try to pretend. Funerals and taxes and weddings and prayers fill their lives, Some take things serious, and other take other men’s wives. Don’t laugh at them with your New York/Los Angeles sneer— Don’t laugh at cowboys, or people who cry in their beer. Don’t laugh at cowboys or Hank Williams’ songs that they sing, Wait till that morning you’re drunk when you lose everything; Don’t laugh at cowboys or Black men or Red men or brown, Don’t laugh at anyone, one day you house will come down.