Comin' Down

That old Mexican man picks up cans in the roadside dust They say that things turned bad for him when the oil booms went bust He had a life down here in Houston, a good job and a lovin' wife But he killed a man in Corpus, now he's serving out his life A shell of a Mexican man, a number is all he is A proud pure blood slowly drained away by the life a convict lives And life without parole when he told 'em what he'd done It's a damn shame what a man can do with an angry soul and an old war gun Oh, oh can you hear it comin' Oh, oh can you hear it now Oh, oh can you hear it comin' Oh, oh it's comin? down After the rigs he got a job at the old A&P Sacking up bags for rich old men just to save his family In his broken tongue he'd cuss 'em for the things they never knew And in his mind he knew the cost of the life he would have to choose So one hot summer night, with no gulf breeze at all He kissed his little girls goodnight, told his wife she'd get a call He walked out of the house that night, through bars no one could see Skyline blurred by the old man's tears, he's gonna set his family free Chorus His kids are all grown up now, they moved away His wife met some kind of artist man, now she's off in Santa Fe And I tried to talk to him once, it's hell in here without a friend But he just turned his back on me and started praying on the beads again So someday soon, I guess he'll die in here, don't you know that's the way it goes Cool gray eyes, a broken down face that nobody really knows But every week he gets a letter and every week tears, they fall like rain Cause every week there's a postmark and every week it's Santa Fe Chorus