Dangerous Dan McGrew

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up

In the Malamute saloon

The kid that handles the music-box

Was hitting a jag-time tune.

Back at the bar in a solo game

Sat Dangerous Dan McGrew

And watching his luck was his light of love

The lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night which was fifty below

And into the din and the glare

There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks

Dog dirty and loaded for bear.

He looked like a man with a foot in the grave

And scarcely the strength of a louse

Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar

And he called for drinks on the house.

There was none could place the stranger's face

Though we searched ourselves for a clue

But we drank his health and the last to drink

Was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes

And hold them hard like a spell

And such was he and he looked to me

Like a man who had lived in hell.

With a face most hair and the dreary stare

Of a dog whose day is done

As he watered the green stuff in his glass

And the drops fell one by one.

Then I got to figgering who he was

And wondering what he'd do

And I turned my head and there watching him

Was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room

And he seemed in a kind of daze

Till at last that old piano fell in the way

Of his wondering gaze.

The rag-time kid was having a drink

There was no one else on the stool

So the stranger stumbles across the room

And flops down there like a fool.

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt

He sat and I saw him sway

Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands

My God but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the great alone

When the moon was awful clear

And the icy mountains hemmed you in

With a silence you most could hear.

With only the howl of a timber wolf

And you camped there in the cold

A half-dead thing in the stark dead world

Clean mad for the muck called gold.

While high overhead green, yellow and red

The North Lights swept in bars

Then you've got a hunch what the music meant

Hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind

That's banished with bacon and beans

But the gnawing hunger of lonely men

For a home and all that it means.

For a fireside far from the cares that are

Four walls and a roof above

But oh! so cramful of cosy joy

And crowned with a woman's love.

A woman dearer than all the world

And true as Heaven is true

God how ghastly she looks through her rouge

The lady that's known as Lou.

Then all of a sudden the music changed

So soft that you scarce could hear

But you felt that your life had been looted clean

Of all that it once held dear.

That someone had stolen the woman you loved

That her love was a devil's lie

That your guts were gone and the best of you

Was to crawl away and die.

Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair

And it thrilled you through and through

I guess I'll make it a spread misere

Said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost died away

Then it burst like a pent-up flood

And it seemed to say, repay, repay

And my eyes were blind with blood.

The thought came back of an ancient wrong

And it stung like a frozen lash

And the lust awoke to kill, to kill

Then the music stopped with a crash.

And the stranger turned and his eyes they burned

In a most peculiar way

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt

He sat and I saw him sway.

Then his lips went in, in a kind of a grin

And he spoke and his voice was calm

And boys says he, you don't know me

And none of you care a damn.

But I want to state and my words are straight

And I'll bet my poke they're true

That one of you is a hound of hell

And that one is Dan McGrew.

Then I ducked my head and the lights went out

And two guns blazed in the dark

And a woman screamed and the lights went up

And two men lay stiff and stark.

Pitched on his head and pumped full of lead

Was Dangerous Dan McGrew

While the man from the creeks lay clutched

To the breast of the Lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case

And I guess I ought to know

They say that the stranger was crazed with hooch

And I'm not denying it's so.

I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys

But strictly between us two

The woman that kissed him and pinched his poke

Was the lady that's known as Lou...