Those other years, those dusty years    When we drove the big hearse through    I tried to forget the miles we rode    and Spanish Johnny, you!    He’d sit beside a water ditch    When all his herd was in    He’d never harm a child    But sing to his mandolin    He sang the old songs, the old talk    And the dealin’ of our games    Spanish Johnny seldom spoke    But sang songs of Spain    And his talk with men was vicious talk    When he was drunk on gin    But those were golden things he said    To his mandolin    We had to stand, we had to judge    We had to stop him then    See those hands so gentle to a child    Had killed so many men    He died a hard death long ago    Before the roads came in    And the night before he swung    He sang to his mandolin    We carried him out in the morning light    The man who done no good    Laid him down in a cold, cold clay    Stuck in a cross of wood    And a letter we wrote to his kinfolks    To tell’em where he’d been    We shipped it on down to Mexico    Along with the mandolin