Black Cowboys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  G 
Bones 

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

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

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