Johnny Cash Reflections

Never in this world before or nevermore hereafter

Could a land know such a people

As the pioneer, the cowboy

His clothes, his conversation, his unique brand of lingo

 

All his devil deeds of daring

His hat, his bandana, the dirty boots

And ragged chaps

But mainly that sixgun dangling

 

So his hand could get it quickly

But draw your own conclusions

Lean to your own understandings

Your beliefs and your convictions

 

Disprove any fact recorded in these sounds

And songs and legends

But I ask you if you do be sure

You've walked in many moccasins

 

Over many, many pathways

And that you have listened carefully

Really listened to the west wind

And to everything it whispers

 

And then go back and listen, listen to this once more

To these legends and traditions

They're only one reflection of a tick of time of that time

Just ponder on the things that happened

 

As we gaze so very deeply

In the time and place and persons

Seeing now and then the West as it really was

And to tell you of a little that we saw there

 

And looking backward through a century

There was the True West there was the Real True West

Not demanding an argument but rather hoping you looked with us

And saw it as we saw it

 

And heard that west wind screaming, shouting almost speaking

Always whispering of these things we sang and spoke of

And you'll hear perhaps the things the we said in the stories

And the legends and traditions

 

Through the wind that breeze these tales

Of the ones who never made it

Yet fighting heat and mountains plains and valleys, snow and hunger

They went westward, westward, westward