Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Old Dolores

Old Dolores

Old Dolores
(James Grafton Rogers)

In the country down below where the little pinons grow,
It's nearly always half a day to water.
There stood a little town where the creek come tumbling down
From the mesa where she surely hadn't oughter.
The streets were bright with candlelight;
The whole town joined the chorus;
And every man in sight let his cattle drift at night,
Just to mosey to the town of old Dolores.

Well things'd kind of spin 'til the sun come up again,
Like the back of some old yellow prairie wagon,
And show you dim and red maybe half a hundred head
Of our saddle ponies standing reins a-draggin'.
The red mud walls, the waterfalls,
The whole wide world before us;
Now the 'dobe walls are gone, the goats' bell in the dawn
Ain't a-jingling in the streets of old Dolores.

The dance hall girls would fool in the plaza in the cool,
It's there he used to meet her by a willow;
But I guess that any girl gives a feller's heart a whirl
When the same's been using saddles fer a piller.
The wide-eyed stars, the long cigars,
The drinks at Joe Portfora's.
If there's any little well down within the gates of hell,
I know the boys have called it old Dolores.

Sung by Harry Tuft on "Across the Blue Mountains," 1999, and by Utah Phillips on
"El Capitan."
XX
July01