Before the bawdy houses all went broke,
contented cowboys, flush with cash, would go.
Fernando with his friends and other folk
perused each painted pretty put on show.

These leggy ladies lounged around in style;
they'd wait and wonder who would be the one
to leave his liquor for a little while
and fork a fiver over for some fun.

They were the wanton women of the West
who proffered pleasure proudly for a price.
Big hearts are often broken in the best;
they lose at love like gamblers lose at dice.

Just tin-pan ladies toiling tough till dawn
with wages weak for weary work each night.
Their work would wear upon their youth till gone;
a better life, from burdens born, took flight.

The cowpoke cattle drives were cause for breath
but soon the railroad ripped the range in two.
Now cattle cars crushed cattle drives to death
and cattle drivin' cowpokes soon were through.

The pretty painted ladies proved no use
to lazy little towns now cast astray.
Love's labor flees when life is lived too loose
and cowboy's poke must pay your way each day.

So now that time is told, in tales of old,
'bout cowboy campfires burning off the chill,
when weather's whimsy whipped the winds so cold
it cut across a broken cowboy's will.

Some lines, at last, for ladies who sold love,
then disappeared into the dust of dawn.
Their future faded like a glittered glove;
a badge of beauty now long dead and gone.