The Storyteller

There was a man in old Pecos, as rotten as can be
He deserved everything he got, had no desire to be free
His scars told the story better than he could do
And that's all he knew

It was a rotten old prison, where bad health and riots flowed
In 20 years he'd seen it all and lost all the friends he knew
That's a long time without your freedom, you begin to settle in
And that's where our story begins

You see, he tried to keep busy; reading books and watching shows
He made himself an expert on makin' license plates and folding clothes
This life didn't suit him and he began to break
This was about all this old boy could take

Then one day a letter came to him with a crayon drawing on the front
He opened it up quietly and he was quite stunned
It was written from Susie G. from Pecos Elementary
She said, Love doesn't have to miss the penitentiary

He wiped away the tears from his wrinkled scared face
He stood up a new man with a reinsured faith
He asked the warden for paper because he knew what he had to do
He'd write letters to others starting with those he knew

He branched out to politicians and famous people in shows
He knew their life was harder than everybody knows
Then he wrote to strangers to tell them his sad song
And he ended them all with a smile, as if nothing was wrong

His letters gave the people hope, he tried to lift them up
He tried to give them perspective and tell them they are loved
The called him The Storyteller, from the roughest block on Reeves
And one day he might just reach out to you, you just wait and see