Ghosts, Latin rhythms, history and protest fuse to make this song. It was initially inspired by the mythic stories told about the heiress Sarah Lockwood Pardee (c1840-1922), wife to William Winchester of firearm fame, and fuelled by the pro-gun/no-gun ravings of morally questionable legislators. In this song, even the ghosts are looking for a place to hide.
And the lyrics? Enjoy!
lyrics
She lay in the brine of a sweat filled fever, there'd been trouble in spirit land
She saw a soldier, he was struggling, her lever-action in his hand
He took two steps in her direction, stopped, raised the sights up to his eye.
His finger lightly caressing the trigger, itching for him to say goodbye
Hey Sarah, what's it gonna be,
Guns and ghosts in this here town?
Hey Sarah, you could use your money
To put me up in one of your rooms.
Now Sarah caught wind of a local prophet, hoping he could calm her mind
She brought him her troubles and some money, and he said leave this place behind
Move yourself west my little lady, hire the finest workers in the land
You're going need a big house for the fallen, for every soul wasted by your hand
Hey Sarah, what's it gonna be,
Guns and ghosts in this here town?
Hey Sarah, you could use your money
To put me up in one of your rooms.
She toiled away at her construction, thirty-eight years, tooth and nail
Rooms for the dearly departed, a project of massive scale
You can hear the folks outside complaining, every time they shoot some people down
More guns, no guns, it ain’t funny, how their arguments spin round and round
Hey Sarah, what's it gonna be,
Guns and ghosts in this here town?
Hey Sarah, you could use your money
To put me up in one of your rooms.
—Spoken Word—
Yah, any old room'll do.
I don't even need a bed,
just something to protect me from the gun-slinging antics of you living folk ...
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