Butch Hancock - Mario y Maria by Butch Hancock lyrics

Mario was a perfect stranger Even in the face of danger Nobody knew if he'd hang around or turn around and run From Heaven to the other side of Hades He was attractive to the ladies Some said he was an angel and some said he was the Devil's son But if there was a lock on swift salvation Mario picked the combination Headed for higher ground with real gold in his heart And he left a trail no one could trace And he told half-truths no one could face Deep in the river of his soul, the time had come to part There are those who never come home Maria was the lonely one And Mario was the only one Who ever meant anything more to her than a fast “how do you do?” With a roof over her prayerful head And a gun under her feather bed She had nightmares every day, and all of them came true But changing time and different places She found friends and fresher faces If she had a memory, she'd locked it in her heart Accusations, loaded questions Empty thoughts and a few confessions Yesterday's the finish and tomorrow is the start There are those who never come home Angeline carved wooden dreams An artist of the world it seems A chisel cut her finger off, the one that wore the ring And the doctor swore he heard her say “It never fit me anyway I would have sold it yesterday, but it wasn't worth a thing.” Well the missing finger changed her style And the missing ring just made her smile She carved a spitting image of Maria rubbing her eye And around that statue's neck of pine On a yellow necklace made of twine She hung that little worthless ring and nobody asked her why There are those who never come home At Maria's likeness, hearts would rupture All throughout the world of sculpture The well-to-do laid money down to stand around and stare But on a locked up Sunday night That statue disappeared from sight And it must have been a masterpiece, ‘cause it vanished in thin air Angeline committed suicide Some call it sad, some call it pride Some joker said, “it could have been worse, she could've cut off her ear.” But the art world faced another fact For her next-to-last artistic act Was a spitting image of Mario wiping away a tear There are those who never come home The gravedigger wiped away the sweat His hands were dry, but his face was wet And the ladies watching him wanted to get their hands on that man But somebody else had a closer shave Carving on the cross, built for the grave The chisel slipped and nearly cut a finger from a hand Well across attracted hummingbirds One for each of seven words “Life if possible, art at any cost” But somebody asked when the crowd dispersed If they got that epitaph reversed The undertaker pointed out the last word on the cross He said, “There are those who never come home.” Well a busted Mario all did see Under gla** and lock and key Sure enough, as fate would have it, it got stolen too And just like the real Mario It found its way down through the barrio And left on a lonesome boxcar as some train came rolling through Well the undertaker was buried in dust And the gravedigger satisfied his lust Worked his way to the top of the pile, a connoisseur of the arts And everybody else that was concerned Just chalked it up as a lesson learned And the memories were flushed away down a common sewer of their hearts There are those who never come home Imagination's hard to manage It takes time to take advantage It takes lots of space itself to fill out everyday And the ending's worse than Elvira Madigan Guerrillas got loose and bombed the Vatican Stole a couple of crying statues and hauled them away Well they sold them as a matching pair In some clandestine affair At last they're out there somewhere crying face to face And the real Maria spits in her mirror And the real Mario spits in his beer And both of them on separate paths, still drift from place to place There are those who never come home Yeah there are those who never come home --- .