Tom Russell Follow

When he breaks out of prison he drives the cold Missouri night
There's strip malls and abandoned mines out on the left and the right
He drives into Mt. Olive and the Becker Funeral Home
Where his daddy's lying with a cold hard stare, black lung, and broken bones

The most dangerous woman in America
Is buried on the edge of town
Hey look out Ma, another man is going down

Well it's darker than a dungeeon down in those abandoned mines
And he's drunk in the house of knowledge playing Sixteen Tonnes a thousand times

It's colder than a witch's tit when the wind blows through these streets
The old mining men in the legion bar, they're staring at their feet

The most dangerous woman in America
Is buried on thhe edge of town
Hey look out Ma another miner's going down

Well the wind blows through the empty rooms of a corporation barn
There's a little blue man on the kitchen floor shooting sparks into his arm
There's a three-car funeral rolling by out on the county line
Bye-bye Daddy you're heading down but right now, so am I

The most dangerous woman in America is buries on the edge of town
Next to the grave where they lay his daddy down

And that night in the house of knowledge
He buys him a .38
And drives out to the discount liquor store on the interstate

The most dangerous woman in America
Has a tear froze in her eye
For the sons and daughters of mining men
Who lost their way toinght

Well bullets fly and one man dies and one drives off alone
To the cemetery at midnight and the grave of Mother Jones

Where he whispers low his daddy's name then "mother, I've come to pray
And pay
For all you've done for the mining men back in the violent day
The most dangerous woman in America
Smiles deep in the frozen ground
And there's sirens coming through a dead end mining town

The most dangerous woman in America
Is buried on the edge of town
Hey look out Ma, another man is going down