El Paso City
Composer(s): Marty Robbins
Performer(s): Marty Robbins; David Allan Coe; Meat Puppets



From thirty thousand feet above
The desert floor, I see it there below
A city with a legend
The west Texas city of El Paso
Where long ago I heard a song
About a Texas cowboy and a girl
And a little place called Rosa's
Where he used to go and watch this beauty whirl

I don't recall who sang the song
But I recall the story that I heard
And as I look down on the city
I remember each and ev'ry word
The singer sang about a jealous cowboy
And the way he used his gun
To kill another cowboy
Then he had to leave El Paso on the run

El Paso Cit-y, by the Rio Grand-e
The cowboy lived and rode away
But love was strong he couldn't stay
He rode back just to die in that El Paso sand
El Paso Cit-y, by the Rio Grand-e
I try not to let you cross my mind
But still I find there's just a mystery
In the song that I don't understand

My mind is down there somewhere
As I fly above the badlands of New Mexico
I can't explain why I should know
The very trail he rode back to El Paso
Can it be that man can disappear
From life and live another time
And does the mystery deepen 'cause you think
That you yourself lived in that other time

Somewhere in my deepest thoughts
Familar scenes and memories unfold
These wild and unexplained emotions
That I've had so long but I have never told
Like every time I fly up thru the heavens
And I see you there below
I get the feeling sometime
In another world I lived in El Paso

El Paso Cit-y, by the Rio Grand-e
Could it be that I could be
The cowboy in this mystery
That died there in that desert sand so long ago
El Paso Cit-y, by the Rio Grand-e
A voice tells me to go and see
Another voice keeps tellin' me
Maybe death awaits me in El Paso

El Paso Cit-y