Where Do Cowboys Go When They Lyrics & Chords By Michael Martin Murphey

Where do cowboys go when they die?
Is there a place in the sweet bye and bye?
Where the water is clean and the grass grows free
and there ain't a cloud in the sky

"What is reincarnation?" A cowboy asked his friend.
His friend replied "Well Son,
it happens when your life has reached its end.
You see, they comb your hair and they wash your neck
and they clean your fingernails.
And they you down in a batted box
far away from life's prevails.
Now the box and you goes in a hole
that's been dug into the ground.
And reincarnation starts
when you're planted beneath the mound.
You see the box melts down just like the clods(?)
with you who is inside.
And then, you're just beginning your transformation ride".

Is there a place in the sweet bye and bye
Where do cowboys go when they die?

"Well, in a while some rain's
gonna come and fall upon the ground.
'Til one day on your lonely little grave,
a little flower will be found.
And say a hoss should wander by
and graze upon the flower
that once was you but now becomes
a vegetative bower.
That little flower that the hoss done ate up
with all his other feed
becomes bone and fat and muscle,
essentials for the steed.
But some he's consumed, he can't use.
So it passes through.
Finally it lays there on the ground,
this thing that once was you.

And then say that I should wander by
and gaze upon the ground.
And wonder and ponder
on this object that I've found.
Well it sure makes me think of reincarnation,
of life and death and such.
And I ride away concludin'
You ain't changed all that much"

Where do cowboys go when they die?
Is there a place in the sweet bye and bye?
Where the water is clean and the grass grows free
and there ain't a cloud in the sky