Live 09 Dec 1995 version
[Spoken intro:] Thank you. Thank you very much. I was uh... I have these three, three brothers that have been, gosh, close friends of mine for twenty years, I guess. And uh, on occasion we get a chance to, to get out across the country a little bit. And we were... took a trip always through the southern, southern California desert, out into Arizona, and we ended up in this little desert town about, uh... about 80 miles, I guess, east of California line. And uh, and we sat, we were sitting outside this little motel, you know, it was one of those towns where? there's a lot of them out in that part of the desert where there's like four buildings and a bar and a grocery store and a little motel. And uh, most of it'd been run by the interstate at this point. But, you sit out there at night and at the end of the summer and we'd uh, you know, drink a little bit, play some cards and play some music. And these two Mexican men came in from the west, I think were driving a truck, and they took the room next to us. One was this young guy, a young handsome young guy who was really high and there was another fellow about my age. And he was looking at our motorcycles and, and he started talking about? he had a younger brother who had recently died in a southern California motorcycle accident. And we sat for about an hour and he talked about his, his little brother. And there was something in his voice, the way he spoke about him, that always, always stayed with me for a year and a half after that. And uh, he'd come up to get the body over there. And there's something, I guess there's something about family where that first line of family feels like it is to protect and to take care, to take care for. And, when that gets broken down... So I was writing a song about the central, uh, California drug trade where these Mexican drug gangs come up and hire the migrant workers to do the dirty work, cook up the methamphetamine, it's a really dangerous job. And uh, I was hearing his voice in my head at the time.
Well Miguel came from a small town in northern Mexico
He came north with his brother Louis to California three years ago
Well they crossed at the river levee when Louis was just sixteen
And found work together in the fields of the San Joaquin
Well they left their homes and their families, their father said, "My sons one thing you will learn
For everything the north gives, it exacts a price in return"
Well they worked side by side in the orchards from morning till the day was through
Doing the work the hueros wouldn't do
Word was out some men in from Sinaloa were looking for some hands
Well deep in Fresno County there was a deserted chicken ranch
And there in a small tin shack on the edge of a ravine
Miguel and Louis stood cooking methamphetamine
Well you spend a year in the orchards or make half as much in just one ten-hour shift
Working for the men from Sinaloa, ah, but if you slipped
The hydriodic acid could burn right through your skin
They'll leave you spitting up blood in the desert if you breath those fumes in
It was early one winter evening as Miguel stood watch outside
When the shack exploded, lighting up the valley night
Miguel carried Louis's body over his shoulder down a swale to the creek side
And there in the tall grass Louis Rosales died
Well Miguel lifted Louis's body into his truck and then he drove
To where the morning sunlight fell on a eucalyptus grove
There in the dirt he dug up ten thousand dollars, all that they'd saved
Kissed his brother's lips and placed him in his grave
The above lyrics are for the live 09 Dec 1995 performance of SINALOA COWBOYS at Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA, during The Ghost Of Tom Joad Solo Acoustic Tour. The song was played solo on acoustic guitar and harmonica.
List of available versions of SINALOA COWBOYS on this website:
SINALOA COWBOYS [Album version]