| Buried mama standing with the knife still in her chest
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| As per her last instructions at her death
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| Said you’ll never get to heaven, son
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| So go to hell real slow
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| Now the ground don’t want me, mama
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| The ground don’t want me, no no no
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| I’ve stacked the deck, I’ve held the dead man’s hand so many times
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| Eights and aces wishing for the death I hoped was mine
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| But cards and guns are all the same
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| Each man must draw his own
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| Now the ground don’t want me, mama
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| The ground don’t want me, no no no
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| What is the body when the soul is flown?
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| Has it only been forgotten?
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| I want to lay down in a field of bone
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| But an angel guards the garden
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| I killed men in Blue Eye, Barbaco, New Life and Crystal Wells
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| In every town, the broken-hearted rang their steeple bells
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| For every man, a box
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| For every hole, a rose
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| Now the ground don’t want me, mama
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| The ground don’t want me, no no no
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| What is the body when the soul is flown?
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| Has it only been forgotten?
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| I want to lay down in a field of bone
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| But an angel guards the garden
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| Then one morning near Arkana, I chanced to watch some violets rise
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| Their lunar blues undoing down the fastest days and nights
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| And I thought how sweet to sleep
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| Beneath the flowers such as those
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| But the ground don’t want me, mama
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| The ground don’t want me, no no no
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| What is the body when the soul is flown?
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| Has it only been forgotten?
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| I want to lay down in a field of bone
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| But an angel guards the garden
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| Sometimes I think 'bout mama with the knife still in her chest
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| Sometimes I think 'bout all those lucky men I sent to rest
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| And how it’s them who are a-sleepin'
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| And it’s me who is the ghost
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| Now the ground don’t want me, mama
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| The ground don’t want me, no no no
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| What is the body when the soul is flown?
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| Has it only been forgotten?
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| I want to lay down in a field of bone
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| But an angel guards the garden |