1. Youngest of nine, Nell’s mother wanted another son.
From day one, raised shooting her brothers’ guns.
A born natural, a bonafide crack shot.
The only true talent in a family of have-nots.
Coyotes on the run, birds on the fly.
Rifle, shotgun, pistol, either hand, bulls eye.
Accounted for distance and conditions without thinking.
Local boys learned she was taking aim, not winking.
Took her skill on the road in a traveling Wild West show.
Many men challenged, Nell was always the best, though.
Her signature trick: a friend threw a deck of cards,
Nell shot the Queen of Hearts from twenty-five yards.
But at age 23, she was forced to retire
When her rifle exploded, the result of a misfire.
Blinded, she still enjoyed slipping out for a spell,
To shoot into the air just for the kick, bang, and powder smell.

Chorus: Headed to the five-and-ten clutching ten cents.
Mom says, “None of those books, they’re too intense.”
Dime Novel Legends don’t fear dime novels,
And that’s who you aspire to be like, am I right?
While mom’s not looking, grab one from the rack,
Buy it and hide it before she says to put it back.
Dime Novel Legends don’t surrender dime novels,
And that’s who you aspire to be like, am I right?

2. Clifford was the honky-tonk piano player in a border town.
One night in the saloon a local music hater gunned him down.
Slumped on the piano, the holes in Clifford’s skull bled.
He somehow survived with two bullets in his head.
Back on the piano the very next day
With a white bandage wrapped around his head as he played.
Fingers flying, almost had the skeptical believing
The superstitious people who maintained he was a demon.
Playing at a breakneck pace in a minor key.
Never speaking, never resting, hammering the ivory.
Started playing right at noon, twelve hours later
Into the saloon stepped the local music hater.
Saw Clifford, heard the music, as the song reached its climax,
The music hater’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed.
Then the song stopped dead and everything went calm
And Clifford spat two bullets from his mouth into his palm.

Chorus: Smuggled the book home tucked in your coat.
Not out of the woods yet, no time to gloat.
Dime Novel Legends don’t endanger dime novels,
And that’s who you aspire to be like, am I right?
Take it to your secret hideout and start reading.
Captivated, you barely remember to keep breathing.
Dime Novel Legends don’t conserve dime novels,
And that’s who you aspire to be like, am I right?

Bridge: A gambler with a mangled face from a Kodiak attack.
Half-Apache scouts guaranteed to get you there and back.
Grizzled bounty-hunters tracking army deserters.
Gun-fighters so quick their duels are just murders.
Crooked sheriffs taking bribes from stagecoach robbers.
Hookers breaking bottles on the heads of barroom brawlers.
Broncos bucking everyone who tries to ride ‘em, breaking necks.
Gorgeous desert flowers at the funerals to pay respects.

3. Clyde ran away from home deep into the mountains.
He would’ve died for sure if the old trapper hadn’t found him
And nursed him back to health. He told Clyde he could stay.
He taught him everything he knew about the trapper/tracker/guide way.
Clyde absorbed it all and eventually he matched
The old trapper’s skill, maybe even surpassed.
But when Clyde was eighteen, he and the trapper had a falling out.
They parted ways and Clyde forgot what it was all about.
Years later, someone hired Clyde to track a fugitive
Up into the mountains in the area he used to live.
A trail so faint he wondered if it was really there,
But his mentor had taught him to follow his gut anywhere.
Used every trick he knew, arrived at a place he didn’t know,
And there he found an old man’s corpse in the snow.
Withered, frozen solid, at least a year since he’d died.
The note stuck to his chest read, “Bury me, Clyde.”

Chorus: Up all night, mind spinning, young heart racing.
Mom says boys should avoid excessive stimulation.
Dime Novel Legends never disregard dime novels,
And that’s who you aspire to be like, am I right?
You grow up to be an average man parked behind a desk.
Far from the rough and tumble of the Wild West.
Dime Novel Legends don’t forget Dime Novel Legends don’t forget…
Dime Novel Legends.