As we were driving out to Samish Island back last August we passed through a couple of old towns. Especially in Montana as we passed ranches and old abandoned farmsteads I had flashes of the Old West. The first line of a set of lyrics popped into my head. When we got to the island I spent one morning writing a new song based on these.
Jeremiah Jones really made no bones about being an honest man.
‘Neath the Montana Sky with cash laid by he worked the cold hard land.
He cared not for gold, but so it was told he had one vice in this world,
The hint of lace and the smile on the face of a winsome, carefree girl.Sidesaddle Sue had nothing better to do than to ruin a good man’s life.
With smooth silk skin she was lovely as sin, soon she made herself Jones’s wife.
Jeremiah’s love, pure as the skies above, built their home with love and care,
But whispers blew, of a love untrue, Sue’s heart wandered elsewhere.Sue drank all day and at night she’d play with the boys down in the town.
She bet on the cards and had no regards as she spent Jones’s money down.
A gambler’s grin and a taste for gin soon led her love astray.
A dark haired man’s ulterior plans soon stole Sue’s heart of clay.One moonlit ride by the riverside, Jones found them, hearts entwined,
He drew his gun, with his life undone while rage had made him blind.
His forty-four roared and the girl he adored lay dead with her paramour.
Jones took his flight into the night, but he left a trail of gore.The very next day Jones was held at bay by a posse of angry men.
Copyright 2023 Thomas E. Taylor
Though he’d been provoked it was he who choked on a noose’s fatal end.
He thought he’d found a love unbound and a flame that would never die.
Now Jeremiah Jones lies beneath the stones and that big Montana sky.
I’ve now had the chance to sing it in a couple of venues, and I change it a bit each time. I think I’ve finally gotten the chords and melody like I want them.