In nineteen and double-aught   A harlot who was hot to trot   Gave a fine little bijou to the world   With a blacksmith for a makeshift doc   In a cathouse far from camelot   Her gold mine brought to bed a baby girl   When the child screamed from life's first slap   The bawd said kid get used to that   You'll never meet a day that isn't cruel   Then she wrapped her babe in a petticoat   Grabbed a bottle and made a toast   Here's to my gorgeous bastard ruby jewel   And the man at the piano played a tune   And everybody sang and danced in the saloon   Except ruby, no not ruby, ruby jewel   Reared among the guttersnipe   While her mama puffed the chinese pipe   The salad days for ruby didn't last   Forced to work and pay her dues   Inside that poor man's moulin rouge   The snot-nosed kid had to grow up fast   Night and day she'd toil and sweat   While brothel patrons placed their bets   On who would be the first to break her in   Then one night the madam screams   Ruby get to room thirteen   There's someone there who thinks you're quite a gem   And the man at the piano played a tune   And everybody sang and danced in the saloon   Except ruby no not ruby ruby jewel   In done up hair and a borrowed dress   She climbed the stares scared to death   Said a prayer and tip-toed through the door   But on deaf ears her prayer fell   Cause through her tears she stared at hell   Standing there in nothing but his drawers   She recognized the whiskered chin   Bloodshot eyes and foul-mouthed grin   He was the man who wore the silver star   She tried to turn around and run   But he pulled out his big six gun   And said whore you won't get very far   And the man at the piano played a tune   And everybody sang and danced in the saloon   Except ruby, no not ruby, ruby jewel   Ruby jewel woke up in bed   A crimson pool between her legs   Naked as the day that she was born   But lying there next to him   Made her wish she hadn't been   If this was all that living had in store   Making sure he was asleep   She quietly got to her feet   Found his gun and aimed it 'tween his eyes   She kept it there 'til he came to   So he could stare down the barrel too   Pulled the trigger once and watched him die   And the man at the piano played a tune   And everybody sang and danced in the saloon   Except ruby no not ruby ruby jewel   On a rainy night in nineteen-twelve   Locked inside the town's new jail   Ruby carved a message in the stone   When morning came hacks led her out   In ankle chains right through the crowd   Who waited in the mud to watch the show   They walked her up the gallows steps   But the rope around her neck   Dropped the trap as all the watchers cheered   But on the wall of her cell   In a tiny scrawl and misspelled   Were the words ruby jewel was here   And the man at the piano played a tune   And everybody sang and danced in the saloon   Except ruby, no not ruby, ruby jewel