The Ballad of Cat Ballou - Part 1
It's a hanging day in Wolf City, Wyoming, 1894.
They're gonna drop Cat Ballou through the gallows' floor.
Cat your time has come as you stand on the brink.
It's sure making you think
about your life of sin.
Why are they now going to hang you and how did you begin?
Catherine Ballou lived in Wolf City, Wyoming
and folks here in Wyoming
live high off the hog.
That brand new firm Sears & Roebuck send them their catalog.
It's an upright town with kind, wonderful people,
reliable people,
friendly as can be.
When they say "Howdy" they mean it. Yep they are neighborly.
If only Cat had behaved,
these folks would befriend her.
If Cat had behaved,
their hearts they would lend her,
but Cat was depraved,
and to hell now they'll send her.
She could have lived like others do.
Cat Ballou,
you're wicked through and through.
They'll now be hanging Cat Ballou.
On a mournful day she became part of a legend.
The real start of a legend
known as Cat Ballou.
When captains of industry
killed her daddy
it filled her heart with a hate that grew.
There are teardrops in her heart
but they can't make her cry.
She refused to fall apart.
They'll never make her cry.
She's lost all the family she's known
and her tears will turn to stone.
All the teardrops in her heart will never make her cry.
It's not very hard to grieve
when you're a little girl.
She refused to give up and leave
after they shattered her world.
They made a little girl feel
like a woman hard as steel,
and no matter how they try,
they'll never make her cry.
When you've got no tears, then you've gotta have something.
Hate really is something.
Blood is what you need
and Cat Ballou made her mind up to make this country bleed.
It took a crafty female brain
to stage the holdup of a train.
She planned it to the last detail
until it couldn't fail.
This dash and daring desperado
led her outlaw gang with cool bravado.
They all would follow where she'd lead.
They made the country bleed.
Round and round and round they went
till man and gal and beast were spent.
Round and round and round they rode.
Oh what an episode.
The Ballad of Cat Ballou
Continued in Part 2
http://www.poetrysoup.com/poems_poets/poem_detail.aspx?ID=263894
Copyright © Billy Thekidster | Year Posted 2010
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