Corb Lund - Lament For Lester Cousins lyrics

Lester Cousins left his brothers on a work truck filled with others Cuz his father'd left his mother years ago And Lester's mother took in lovers to feed and clothe his younger brothers So at thirteen years our Lester chose to go Men introduced him to hard labour, moving earth and stacking hay Were all the options that were open to the boy And the same men showed our Lester Lady Luck's appeal and blessed her With a trusting young disciple to enjoy With the gamblin' came the drinkin' and the cocaine and the sinkin' That accompanies a man who's falling down And pretty soon the fightin' and the whoring every night And pills and losing left his spirit on the ground Well there comes a time when even hardened men need to believe in Something more and look within and be afraid When a particularly rough night took his friend in one more knife fight For the first time in his hard life Lester prayed Lester now, Lester now, keep it together, we all want to see you succeed Lester now, Lester now, hold it together, cuz your goodness is what the world needs Lester now, Lester now, keep it together and don't lose that spirit of yours And for the sake of us all, Lester, try not to fall with the weight of the world at your door And for the sake of us all, Lester, try not to fall with the fate of the world on the floor And for the sake of us all, Lester, try not to fall with the hate of the world as your whore Well God led Lester to a lady who was finally worth the wait He bought a ring and changed his ways and settled down And he farmed his forty acres, raised a daughter, loved his Maker Loved his wife and earned respect all through the town Hard at work and clean and sober fifteen years come this October All the vices of his past had disappeared Very little did he know then that the young, out of control men That his mother'd learned to dread would reappear Well his life and home were shattered and his wife and daughter battered When the kind he knew so well came back around An incontainable aggression induced Lester to regress and Coldly murder those who'd raped the love he'd found It didn't take them long to find him or convict him or confine him To a cell block full of wounded prisoner doom Because despite his mother's will, her Lester Cousins was a killer now Who'd never live to leave the jailer's tomb