Desperate To Die

V1 Jimmy Ray played the hand he was dealt From a deck of fifty-one He learned young that mercy don’t come To boys where he came from He wore trouble like an overcoat Beneath the cover of midnight skies Robbed liquor stores, the rich, the poor Til a lick went wrong one night CH He was desperate to die Past the jagged edge of hope Sixty years of cold, hard time Hung on him like a hangman’s rope Just twenty-five and still alive With no good answer why Couldn’t face those dead-end days He was desperate to die V2 He’d worn a path through county jail Then rode upstate late last fall Every motion tried came back denied No chance for parole at all Behind those bars and crooked guards He chose to change his destiny Before mornin’ broke, his bunk was cold And his sentence had been beat CH He was desperate to die Past the jagged edge of hope Sixty years of cold, hard time Hung on him like a hangman’s rope Just twenty-five and still alive With no good answer why Couldn’t face those dead-end days He was desperate to die BR Some might say he took the easy way Some just say, what’s done is done But one thing’s clear, if he was here Jimmy Ray would say, “I finally won…” CH He was desperate to die Past the jagged edge of hope Sixty years of cold, hard time Hung on him like a hangman’s rope Just twenty-five and still alive With no good answer why Couldn’t face those dead-end days He was desperate to die Outro Yeah, in his mind It would’ve been a crime Doin’ sixty years to life…