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| Pete Atkin sings
Tenderfoot by Clive James and Pete Atkin, [Much more at www.peteatkin.com] |
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Beyond the border town they call Contrition The badlands are just boulders and mesquite A school of Spanish friars built the mission But left because they couldn't take the heat And further on the road to Absolution The mesas turn to mountains capped with snow And the way becomes a form of execution That only hardened travellers can go You can tell the horseman grieves for how he sinned He rides a killing trail Reminded of his hard heart by the hail And of his folly by the chilling wind By day the canyon ramparts blaze their strata Like purple battlements he shall not pass The sunlight sears the horseman like a martyr The glacier's a magnifying glass And by night the clouds black out the constellations While veils of icicles lock up his eyes He moves by echo through the cold formations Walls of drift and ice-fall fall and rise You can tell the horseman grieves for how he sinned He rides a killing trail Reminded of his hard heart by the hail And of his folly by the chilling wind He knows he made pretence of love too often His deadly carelessness went on for years At dawn the shields on his eyes will soften And all of his regrets will be in tears But far too late to go back and be gentle Or say how clearly now it comes to mind His pride at never being sentimental Was just a clever way to be unkind You can tell the horseman grieves for how he sinned He rides a killing trail Reminded of his hard heart by the hail And of his folly by the chilling wind Around him lie the stunning and the drastic Where nothing but the utmost can be felt The temperatures will always be fantastic Noon will never cool nor midnight melt A fitting climate for one so unfeeling Who once was so indifferent to distress He's goaded onward with his senses reeling Without the prospect of forgetfulness You can tell the horseman grieves for how he sinned He rides a killing trail Reminded of his hard heart by the hail And of his folly by the chilling wind The golden handshake and the lightning kisses Were all his for the asking in the past But the subtlety and softness that he misses For them the horseman always moved too fast And now at last to contemplate his error Facing the dimensions of his loss He journeys where the sky meets the Sierra That every man alive must one day cross You can tell the horseman grieves for how he sinned He rides a killing trail Reminded of his hard heart by the hail And of his folly by the chilling wind | |||||
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