Now it was just like Frankie and Johnny And it was just like Stagger Lee Dolly Summers was a simple girl From a mid-west family With a stucco home and her own Mustang And a charge account at Sears She had everything that a girl could want To live happy for the rest of her years
But the thing that she wanted most of all Was the thing that she had lost To the arms of a downtown black jack hustler By the name of Candyfloss They'd skipped town on a late night train Heading for the West Dolly slipped behind the wheel of her Mustang With a piece between her breast
She put a pistol in her shoulder holster She took her car up from Santa Fe Yesterday morning she was washing dishes Now she's hunting down a runaway Don't judge a man by a misdemeanor You may be sorry when his light goes out Don't put that pistol in your shoulder holster You can never, never tell if the Law's about
If it seemed just like a movie Or a night of bad TV They should have had a picture of Dolly's face As she drove across country With daggers drawn for her fallen man And venom in her heart It was nearly dawn when she caught them up Making out in a picnic park
But the thing that shook her rigid As she fumbled for her gun Was the state of the man that she'd married once And thought of as the only one And as she looked back on the chances That she'd passed up at home Well she quietly dumped her pistol in a ditch And she headed home alone