Otto Wood

Step up boys and listen to my song
I'll sing it to you right but you might take it wrong
It's all about a man they called Otto Wood
I can't tell you all but I wish I could

He stepped into a pawn shop a rainy day
Then he had a quarrel with the clerk they say
Pulled out his pistol and shot the fatal blows
That is the way the story goes

Otto why didn't you run Otto's done dead and gone
Otto Wood why didn't you run when the sheriff pulled out that 44 gun

Spread the new as fast as I could
The sherrfi swore a wqarrant out on Otto Wood
The jury said murder in the 2nd degree
The judge passed sentence to the penitentiary

They stuck him in the pen but it done no good
They couldn't hold a man called Otto Wood
In a very little while he slipped outside
Put a gun on a guard said take me for a ride

The second time they caught him was way out west
In a holdem game he got shot in the breast
They drug him back and when he got well
They locked him down in a dungeon cell

Now he was a man that would not run
Always carried a 44 gun
He loved the ladies and hated the law
Just wouldn't take nobody's jaw

He rambled out west and he rambled all around
Till he met two sherrifs in a Southern town
They said Otto better step to the way
We been expecting you every day

He pulled out his pistol and then he said
Make a crooked move and you both fall dead
Crank up the car and take me out of town
A few minutes later he was graveyard bound

(Trad.)

As recorded on #107 "Steel Drivin' Man"

As re-released on #116 "Dreamer or Believer"

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