Tyin’ Knots in the Devil’s Tail Songtext
von Dom Flemons

Well, folks, here′s a song from my part of the country

Now, way high up in the Sierry Petes where the yellow jack pines grow tall
Buster Jiggs and Sagebrush Sam had a round-up late last fall
They'd taken their horses and their running irons and maybe a dog or two
They allowed to brand every long-eared calf that came within their view
Any old calf with lope-long ears that didn′t push out by day
Got his long horns chiseled, and his old hide sizzled in the most artistic way

Says Buster Jiggs to Sagebrush Sam, as he throwed his long leg down
"I'm getting tired of cow-pie-ography and I reckon we'll go to town"
They started out on a mighty smart lope, for there weren′t no side of a ride
And those were the days when an old cowpunch could oil up his dry insides
At the old Kentucky bar, they stopped at the Whiskey Row
And they wound up tight sometime that night, some 40 drinks below


The house turned around, and they set ′em up, got 'em in the other way
Honest to goodness, to tell the truth, folks, them boys got drunk that day
Well, both went out to the Sierry Petes, and they was packin′ a dern good load
But, who should they meet, but the Devil himself, come a-prancin' down the road?
"Confound you ornery cowboy skunks! You′d better headhunt your hole
For I am the Devil from the Hell's rim rock come to gatherin′ your souls"

"The Devil be damned!", says Buster Jiggs, "We boys both know we're tight
Before you corral any cowboy souls, you're gonna have one kind of a fight"
He throwed his rope and he throwed it straight, and he spun ′er good and true
And he loped the Devil by his pointed horns, and he took his dallies too
Sagebrush Sam was a lariat man with his gut line coiled up neat
He throwed ′er out, and he made him a rope, and he roped the Devil's hind feet

And they laid him out, and they fetched him down while the sizzlin′ irons grew hot
They trimmed his horn with a dehornin' saw, and they brand him up a lot
They tied ten knots in the old boy′s tail, and they left him there for a joke
And they left him just a-bellowin' there, tied up to a blackjack oak
Now, if you′re ever down in the Sierry Petes and you hear one Hell of a wail
You know it's nothin' but the Devil himself raising Hell about the knots in his tail