| Little Jesse was a gambler, night and day
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| He used crooked cards and dice
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| Sinful guy, good hearted but had no soul
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| Heart was hard and cold like ice
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| Jesse was a wild reckless gambler
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| Won a gang of change
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| Altho' a many gambler’s heart he led in pain
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| Began to spend a-loose his money
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| Began to be blue, sad and all alone
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| His heart had even turned to stone
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| What broke Jesse’s heart while he was blue and all alone
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| Sweet Lorena packed up and gone
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| Police walked up and shot my friend Jesse down
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| Boys i got to die today
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| He had a gang of crapshooters and gamblers at his bedside
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| Here are the words he had to say:
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| Guess I ought to know
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| Exactly how I wants to go
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| (How you wanna go, Jesse?)
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| Eight crapshooters to be my pallbearers
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| Let 'em be veiled down in black
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| I want nine men going to the graveyard, bubba
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| And eight men comin back
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| I want a gang of gamblers gathered 'round my coffin-side
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| Crooked card printed on my hearse
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| Don’t say the crapshooters’ll never grieve over me
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| My life been a doggone curse
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| Send poker players to the graveyard
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| Dig my grave with the ace of spades
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| I want twelve polices in my funeral march
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| High sheriff playin' blackjack, lead the parade
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| I want the judge and solic’ter who jailed me 14 times
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| Put a pair of dice in my shoes (then what?)
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| Let a deck of cards be my tombstone
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| I got the dyin' crapshooter’s blues
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| Sixteen real good crapshooters
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| Sixteen bootleggers to sing a song
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| Sixteen racket men gamblin'
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| Couple tend bar while i’m rollin' along
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| He wanted 22 womens outta the Hampton Hotel
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| 26 off-a South Bell
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| 29 women outta North Atlanta
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| Know |