Black Cowboys Ukulele tab

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Rainey Williams playground was the Mott Haven streets 
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Where he ran past melted candles and flower wreaths 
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Names and photos of young black faces 
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Whose death and blood consecrated these places 

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Raineys mother said Rainey stay at my side 
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For you are my blessing, you are my pride 
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Its your love here that keeps my soul alive 
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I want you to come home from school and stay inside 

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Rainey'd do his work and put his books away 
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There was a channel showed a Western movie everyday 
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Lynette brought him home books on the black cowboys of the Oklahoma range 
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The Seminole scouts that fought the tribes of the Great Plains 

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Summer come and the days grew long 
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Rainey always had his mother's smile to depend on 
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Along the street of stray bullets he made his way 
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To the warmth of her arms at the end of each day 

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Come the fall, the rain flooded these homes 
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Here in Ezekiel's valley of dry bones 
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It fell hard and dark to the ground 
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It fell without a sound 

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Lynette took up with a man whose business was the boulevard 
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Whose smile was fixed in a face that was never off guard 
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In the pipes 'neath the kitchen sink his secrets he kept 
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In the day, behind drawn curtains in Lynette's bedroom he slept 

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Then she got lost in the days 
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The smile Raney depended on dusted away 
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The arms that held him were no more his home 
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He lay at night his head pressed to her chest listening to the ghost in her 

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Bones 

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In the kitchen Rainey slipped his hand between the pipes 
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From a brown bag pulled five hundred dollar bills 
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And stuck it in his coat side 
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Stood in the dark at his mother's bed 
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Brushed her hair and kissed her eyes 

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In the twilight Rainey walked to the station on streets of stone 
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Through Pennsylvania and Ohio his train drifted on 
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Through the small towns of Indiana the big train crept 
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As he lay his head back on the seat and slept 

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He awoke and the towns gave way to muddy fields of green 
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Corn and cotton and endless nothin' in between 
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Over the rutted hills of Oklahoma the red sun slipped and was gone 
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The moon rose and stripped the earth to its bone