Yes, sir, thats why I love my gun

see this notch on the stock there mister thats where
i shot jake mcmurty in sixty-one and that notch there
is for old man clayton i winged him and he took
three days to die when his wound got infected
that was the summer of sixty-three the long hot one
a good shot though i would rather have killed
him straight out still dead is dead and old man clayton
he sure aint coming back to shoot me no more
yes sir thats why i love my gun

see this pin here mister if you pull that out
you can take the whole chamber out i like to clean
the chamber and brush out the barrel cause
any dirt what gets into the barrel or on the chamber
it can really count against you if your gun dont work
when you need it back in sixty-five there were
three brothers zeke henry and elias cornwell
and me and my friend aaron goodspeed took our guns
and we went into the woods and shot them zeke
wouldve shot me but his gun jammed and we found
afterward there was dirt in his chamber so
that his gun wouldnt fire now zeke I guess he
got all the time in the world to think about how
important it is to have a clean gun

in the winter of sixty-nine aaron and me we was
herding cattle across the red river us all wrapped
up against the cold and two men on the trail got drunk
real bad so the drive boss sent them home without
pay but they got themselves real uppity and drunk
some more and came after us to get the pay
they said they was owed then aaron caught them
but they shot him in the stomach and he was a day
and a half hanging on until he died so i took my gun
and tracked them down and shot them one leg at a time
until they begged for the mercy they dint show aaron

so you can see mister there werent enough room
on my gun for all the notches i needed i had to hold
them names in my head and when you kill a man
you kind of remember it even though the man himself
werent nothing to remember it dont matter
how big or small how strong or weak they are
just one bullet takes the best of them down it kind
of evens us up us men makes us all equal
yes sir thats why i love my gun