Now, I'm Riding
**Now, I'm Riding** is a cinematic spaghetti-western tale about an aging gunfighter who has survived a life few men ever walked away from.
He left his family farm at seventeen with a saddle, a pistol and the certainty of youth, then spent a lifetime riding through border towns, gun smoke and violence. He watched good men die, made enemies, carried regrets, and more than once survived when everyone expected him to end up beneath a wooden cross.
Now older, slower and tired of proving himself, he turns his horse toward home.
Driven by the rhythm of galloping hooves, twanging western guitar and lonely harmonica, the song follows his final ride back toward the fields where he grew up. As the familiar hills, cottonwoods and old fence line appear ahead, the gunfighter realizes that surviving was never his greatest victory.
Coming home was.
At the end of the road, he hangs his pistol by the door and leaves the legend behind.
He rode away a gunfighter.
He came back home a man.
Music video
Lyrics
I rode away at seventeen,
With my father’s saddle worn,
A silver dollar in my boot,
And a pistol at my side.
Mama stood beside the gate,
Watched me disappear,
I thought the world was mine to take,
And I had nothing left to fear.
I learned the names of border towns,
And every kind of sin,
Learned a man can draw real fast,
And still not always win.
I’ve seen the smoke above the street,
Heard church bells for the dead,
And more than once I walked away,
When they swore that I was dead.
Now I’m riding where the old road bends,
Where the cottonwoods still stand,
Where my father broke the stubborn earth,
With two strong working hands.
I’ve carried iron all my life,
I’ve carried grief and shame,
But somewhere past that old fence line,
The dust still knows my name.
There’s silver growing through my hair,
My hands don’t move as fast,
But speed won’t mean a damn thing now,
I’m finished with the past.
Against the odds I’m breathing still,
Though better men went down,
And I’ve no wish to prove myself,
To any man in town.
Then morning breaks across the ridge,
And there beneath the sun,
I see the barn where I was raised,
And know my riding’s done.
The weathered house is smaller now,
The fields have turned to gold,
But that crooked gate still leans the way
It did when I was young.
So I’m riding where the old road ends,
Where the cottonwoods still stand,
Where my father broke the stubborn earth,
With two strong working hands.
I’ll hang my pistol by the door,
Let rust consume the frame,
For somewhere past that old fence line,
The dust still knows my name.
I rode away a gunfighter...
I came back home a man.
