Everett Ruess

Dave Alvin



(Blue Horn Toad Music, BMI)







I was born Everett Ruess



I been dead for sixty years



I was just a young boy in my twenties



The day I disappeared.







Into the Grand Escalante Badlands



Near the Utah and Arizona line



And they never found my body, boys



Or understood my mind.







I grew up in California



And I loved my family and my home



But I ran away to the High Sierra



Where I could live free and alone.







And folks said ÔÇŁHe's just another wild kid



And he'll grow out of it in time,?



But they never found my body, boys



Or understood my mind.







I broke broncos with the cowboys



I sang healing songs with the Navajo



I did the snake dance with the Hopi



And I drew pictures everywhere I go.







Then I swapped all my drawings for provisions



To get what I needed to get by



And they never found my body, boys



Or understood my mind.







Well I hate your crowded cities



With your sad and hopeless mobs



And I hate your grand cathedrals



Where you try to trap God.







ÔÇ˙Cause I know God is here in the canyons



With the rattlesnakes and the pinon pines



And they never found my body, boys



Or understood my mind.







They say I was killed by a drifter



Or I froze to death in the snow



Maybe mauled by a wildcat



Or I'm livin' down in Mexico.







But my end, it doesn't really matter



All that counts is how you live your life



And they never found my body, boys



Or understood my mind.







You give your dreams away as you get older



Oh, but I never gave up mine



And they'll never find my body, boys



Or understand my mind.