Friends, this is Simon Crumb
with the story about
the hillbilly sucker
in a deck of cards.
A bunch of boys was playing poker
in a little tiny old back home
behind the general store
and one old boy kept watching them
and they said, come on,
get in the game.
He wouldn't do it.
They said, why not? He
wouldn't tell them.
They kept asking him
and he never would tell them.
Finally, he broke down
and he told them.
He said, you see, fellas, that ace reminds me of the first
and last trip I went to a town called Reno, Nevada.
The deuce, well,
that makes me think of the two days and nights
that it took me to get to this town
of one -armed bandits,
card sharks,
and sharpshooters.
The trade, well,
that's the three cards.
That's how many there was
in our party.
There was three of us.
Me and my wife
and another hillbilly sucker
that went along with us to help us drive.
The four, well,
that's the time of day that we got there,
four o in the morning,
and at four o 'clock the
next morning,
we were still at it.
The five, let me say the five,
oh, I don't remember what the five means,
but the six, well,
that's after I quit playing poker
and tried that other game,
you know, that long green table
and you roll them things
with the white spots on them down it.
Well, a six is what I've come
up on me after I rolled.
The seven, you guessed it,
the seven is what I got.
The eighth?
Well, that makes me think
of all the eight balls
that was up there. Nine?
That's the number of livestock that I sold
to get enough money to
get up there.
There was four old sails,
three white -faced heifers,
and two shoals.
The ten?
Well, that reminds me
of the ten thousand times
I wished that I'd have stayed
at home.
The queen?
Oh, that queen,
that was my loving wife
that stood right by my side
and lost twice as much as I did.
The King, that's what I thought I'd be
when I got back home
with all that loot that I
didn't get in with.
The Jack, well that's the dirty devil
with the diamond studded tie pin
and the big zircon ring on his finger
that made a pass at my wife
when she was sucker enough
to fall for him,
caused me to knock two
of her teeth out
and send him rolling through a
plate glass window.
There's four suits
in the deck of cards, fellas.
That's the number of policemen
that beat the tar out of me.
There was four of them.
They beat me up
and throwed me in the jail.
365 spots on a deck of cards.
Well, that's how much money I
had in my pocket
when they throwed me in jail, 365.
And I paid it to one of them
shyster lawyers
to defend me.
And he didn't even show
up at the trial.
There's 12 picture cards.
And that's how many men
there was on the jury.
There was 12 of them.
And every dad -burned one of them
was as crooked as a barrel of snakes.
52 cards in the deck.
That's how many weeks
that I had to spend in the jail
over this little incident
So you see fellas this deck of cards
ain't only to blame for me losing
all of my money
my wife my home and all
Of my livestock
But also it's causing me to go through life
as an ex -convict a jailbird
a criminal a wife -beater a peace
Disturber and a good -for -nothing
lowdown scoundrel and
a gambler
Neighbors, this ain't no fairy tale.
I know, because I was that sucker.
Ho, ho, well, that's life for you.