Lyrics Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail - Michael Martin Murphey

Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail

Way high up in
The Sierry Peaks
Where the yellow-jack pines grow tall
Old Buster Jiggs and Sandy
Bob
Had a round-up camp last fall
Well they took along their running
Irons
Maybe a dog or two
And they 'lowed thy’d brand every long-eared calf
That came
Within their view
Now every little long-eared dogie
That didn’t push up by
Day
Got his long ears whittled and his old hide scorched
In a most artistic
Way
One fine day, says Buster Jiggs
As he throws his seago down
«I'm tired
Of cowpiography
And I think I’m a goin' into town.»
Well they saddled up, and they
Hit a lope
For it warn’t no sight of a ride
And them was the days that a good
Cow-punch
Could oil up his insides
Well they started in at Kentucky Bar
At
The head of Whisky Row
And they wound her up at the Depot House
About forty drinks
Below
Well they sets 'em up and they turns around
And they started in the other
Way
And to tell the God-forsaken truth
Them boys got drunk that day
They was
On their way, goin' back to camp
A-packin' that awful load
When who should they meet but
The Devil himself
Come a-traipsin' down the road
He says, «You ornery cowboy
Skunks
You better go hunt for your holes
'Cause I’ve come up from Hell’s rim
Rock
Just to gather in your souls
«The Devil be damned,» says Buster
Jiggs
«Us boys is a little bit tight;
But you don’t go gatherin' no cowboys'
Souls
Without one helluva fight.»
Now Buster Jiggs could ride like hell
And
Throw a lasso, too
So he threw it over the Devil’s horns
And he took his dallies
True
Now Sandy Bob was a reata man
With his gut-line coiled up neat;
But he
Shook her out and he builds a loop
And he roped the Devils hind feet
Well they
Stretches him out and they tails him down
While the running-irons were getting hot
And
They cropped and swallow-forked his ears
And they branded him up a lot
Well they
Trimmed his horns way down to his head
Tied ten knots in his tail for a joke
Then they
Went off and left him there
Tied up to a little pin oak
Now when you’re high in the
Sierry Peaks
And you hear one hell of a wail
Well you know it’s just the Devil
Himself
Yellin' 'bout them knots in his tail