| Little Jesse was a gambler, night and day
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| And he used crooked cards and dice
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| He was a son of guy, good hearted but he had no soul
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| Jesse’s heart was hard and cold like ice
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| Jesse was a wild reckless gambler
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| He won a gang of change
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| Altho' a many gambler’s heart he led in pain
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| Jesse began to spend and loose his money
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| He began to be blue, sad and all alone
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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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| And the police walked up and they shot my friend Jesse down, boy
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| He got to die someday
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| Copy paste is a sin, always on the run is better
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| He had a gang, gang and gamblers at his bedside
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| And here are the words he had to say
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| I guess I ought to know
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| Exactly how I want 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, buddy
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| I want eight men coming 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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| My life has been a doggone curse
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| Well, well, well, well
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| Send poker players to the graveyard, buddy
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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 fourty times
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| Put a pair of dice in my shoes, what else
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| Let a deck of cards be my tombstone, buddy
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| I got the dying crapshooter
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| Sixteen real good crapshooters
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| Sixteen bootleggers to sing a song
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| I want sixteen racket men gamblin'
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| Couple tend bar while I’m rollin' along
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| He wanted twenty two womens outta the Hampton Hotel
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| He wanted twenty six off-a South Bell
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| He wanted twenty nine women outta North Atlanta
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| Know little Jesse didn’t pass out so swell
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| Well his heart was aching and his head was thumping
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| Little Jesse went down bouncin' and jumpin'
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| Folks, don’t be standing 'round ol' Jesse dying
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| He wants everybody to do the Charleston whiles he gone
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| One foot up, and a toenail dragging
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| Throw my friend Jesse in the hoodoo wagon
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| Come here mama with that can of booze
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| I got the dyin' crapshooter’s, blues
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| The dyin' crapshooter’s blues
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| The dyin' crapshooter |