[Intro: desert wind, a horse snorting, saddle leather creaking, a lone cello, the slide guitar howls once far off] [Verse 1: low, weathered baritone] Born where the sky don't end, outside of Bozeman town Horses long before a car, winters burying us down Eight years with a badge on my sleeve, then they sent me south to a line in the Arizona dust, and a job I don't talk about [Verse 2] Me and Jefe up the canyon trail where the trucks can't ever climb Quarter horse and a cold canteen and a radio half the time I write it clean for the station, then I write it true for the other One goes upstairs in a folder, one goes downstairs, under cover [Chorus: fuller, fiddle and cello swell] Riding fence, riding fence back home we called it riding fence Somebody's got to walk the wire when the night don't make no sense I don't ask what I ain't told I just ride the line I'm sent Riding fence riding fence [Instrumental: hoofbeats, fiddle and cello trade the melody, the slide howls closer in the dark, then goes quiet] [Verse 3: quieter, almost spoken, to the horse] I talk to the horse 'cause the horse don't file and he don't ask me why There's something walks this corridor that ought to stay in the ground, and don't Analysts back East call it the problem I call it a long night's work Easy, Jefe. Easy. [Bridge: slow, cello alone, then the band builds] Preacher read it Sundays back in Gallatin I was ten, and it scared me half to death and I looked, and behold, a pale horse I never thought I'd be the one who rode it [Final Chorus: full, steady, resolute] Riding fence, riding fence back home we called it riding fence Somebody's got to walk the wire when the night don't make no sense I don't ask what I ain't told I just ride the line I'm sent Riding fence till somebody tells me stop [Outro: the band drops away, hoofbeats walking on, desert wind, the slide howls one last time far behind them] [Spoken, flat and dry] Come on, Jefe. Long night.
