Fake Tin Star

Things these days are better by far,

A horse can out run a motor car,

If the wheels are rubber and the rails are steel

That beast can outrun any automobile

Here's the story of progress and all the bullets they spent

On a sheet hung up in a circus tent

There's a lantern shining - it's pointing the way

This kind man has probably had his day

But they keep him around with his last vain hope

For selling tickets while spinning a rope.

They brought him down off the vanishing trail

But nobody these days wants to hear his tale

So he spends his nights leaning up at the bar

The real gone cowboy with the fake tin star.

Up on the screen there's a boy half his age

They pay him 20 times his weekly wage

For dodging phony bullets and catching blunt blades

For blowing up horses and kissing young maids.

Children cheer

Women throw flowers

Men just glower

Up at the screen

But they don't know

Just what it means

Vengeance and dreams.

Girls just swoon at the mention of him

With his face all powdered and his immaculate brim

And his hair pommaded and his fingernails clean

While old men whisper "Just look at him preen"

And outside muttering through a cheap cigar

There's a real gone cowboy with a fake tin star.