(Krall/Costello)
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Things these days are better by far,
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A horse can out run a motor car,
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If the wheels are rubber and the rails are steel
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That beast can outrun any automobile
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Here's the story of progress and all the bullets they spent
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On a sheet hung up in a circus tent
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There's a lantern shining - it's pointing the way
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This kind man has probably had his day
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But they keep him around with his last vain hope
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For selling tickets while spinning a rope.
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They brought him down off the vanishing trail
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But nobody these days wants to hear his tale
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So he spends his nights leaning up at the bar
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The real gone cowboy with the fake tin star.
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Up on the screen there's a boy half his age
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They pay him 20 times his weekly wage
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For dodging phony bullets and catching blunt blades
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For blowing up horses and kissing young maids.
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Children cheer
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Women throw flowers
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Men just glower
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Up at the screen
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But they don't know
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Just what it means
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Vengeance and dreams.
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Girls just swoon at the mention of him
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With his face all powdered and his immaculate brim
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And his hair pommaded and his fingernails clean
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While old men whisper "Just look at him preen"
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And outside muttering through a cheap cigar
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There's a real gone cowboy with a fake tin star.
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Fake Tin Star
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Elvis Costello |