The Duke is Gone – Jeff Hampton, Writer

In the summer of ’79,
I was workin’ the New Mexico Spade,
Where the rocks are red, the trail is long,
And the sun burns hot all day.
Was a great time to be alive,
Doing things the cowboy way,
The whole world looked like a B western movie,
And we all had a role to play.

One mornin’ ’bout quarter to seven,
We were sittin’ in Charlotte’s cook shack,
Charlotte was frying up eggs and bacon,
And Buddy was dishin’ up wise cracks.
Then big James wandered on in,
And sat down with a great sigh,
Had a frown on his face like he lost his best friend,
And sadness deep in his eyes.

He said . . . “The Duke is gone, boys, the Duke is gone,
We lost the best today.
The Duke is gone, the Duke is gone,
There’ll never be another John Wayne.”

Now John Wayne he was the greatest,
That ever rode the silver screen.
Sometimes he was a soldier, sometimes he was a sailor,
But he’ll always be a cowboy to me.
He was a sure-nuff horseman,
He was righteous when he carried a gun,
Whether herdin’ to the Red, or in search of Little Deb,
He did it like it oughta be done.

The Duke is gone, the Duke is gone,
We lost the best that day.
The Duke is gone, the Duke is gone,
There’ll never be another John Wayne.

Later that very same mornin’, As we trotted up Rattlesnake Mesa,
I was thinkin’ ’bout my life and the places I’d been,
And wonderin’ where the trail would take me.
As we cleared the top of that mesa,
I looked back over my tracks,
And out across the desert, I thought I saw him comin’,
With Walter and Monty in back.

The Duke is gone, the Duke is gone,
We lost the best that day.
The Duke is gone, the Duke is gone,
There’ll never be another John Wayne.