Wayne Orr

Writer 🕹️ Poet 🕹️ Lyricist


“Bannon’s Dust”(A Country Folk Ballad)

Verse 1
Well, the saloon doors swing where the coyotes cry,
Silver moon cuts through a skeleton sky.
The mine’s old bones groan with a story untold—
‘Bout a rush for the riches that turned into coal.

Chorus
Oh Bannon, Bannon, your dust fills our veins, We raise up the cities just to let ’em be claimed. Gold turns to gravel, dreams fade in the rain— We’re all just ghosts in the end, anyway.

Verse 2
My granddaddy swore he’d strike silver and blue,
Now his pickaxe rusts where the sagebrush grew.
The church bell’s gone silent, the schoolhouse is bare,
But the wind hums their hymns through the cracks in the air.

Chorus
Oh Bannon, Bannon, your dust fills our veins, We raise up the cities just to let ’em be claimed. Gold turns to gravel, dreams fade in the rain— We’re all just ghosts in the end, anyway.

Bridge
The stars scribble names on the canyon’s cold slate,
Whispers of lovers, the deals sealed by fate.
The earth don’t remember the greed or the pain—
Just swallows the footprints we leave in her name.

Verse 3
So pour me a whiskey where the railroad died,
Let’s toast to the fools who still chase that high.
The desert’s a mirror—it shows every man
How quick all his schemin’ blows off with the sand.

Chorus
Oh Bannon, Bannon, your dust fills our veins, We raise up the cities just to let ’em be claimed. Gold turns to gravel, dreams fade in the rain— We’re all just ghosts in the end, anyway.

Outro
We’re all just ghosts… in the end, anyway.

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