Click + to open toggle.

Riding through the Chisos Mountains
Sierra Madre’s up ahead
My runaway horses gave us the slip again
My tracker’s name is Shy Wolf
He says, They’re heading for the Rio Grande
And there we find them running with a wild band

Oh across the border lands

Shy Wolf’s and old Commanche
Says this reminds him of the mustangs long ago
When they would roam from the Brazos down into Mexico
And that stallion, he’s a beauty
Strong and he moves like the wind
In the old days I trade a hundred ponies to ride him

Oh across the border lands

We move to cut out our horses, then the stallion rears
He charges, kicks and bites until our mounts pull back in fear
Pull back in fear

Now I’m watching that stallion
Pacing between us and his herd
And the only way I’ll get my horses back is with my Winchester
And I know I couldn’t do that
Then Shy Wolf says let the old ways be
For once just like long ago they can run free

Oh across the border lands

I head south from Lusk
Through the grasslands at dusk
Gonna drive my eyes red on this highway
I’m so heartbroke alone
That I pull off the road
When there’s a rattlesnake dead on the highway

He wasn’t doing no harm
Just trying to keep warm
But that’ll get you killed dead on the highway
And trying to get warm inside
Many times my heart has died
Like that rattlesnake dead on the highway

When I fall in love
This pain always comes
And the pain--it’s more than I can take
I try to let love in
Fight to let love win
It’s like I’m standing my ground against an eighteen wheel rig
Yeah, I’m standing my ground against an eighteen wheel rig
Then I’m a rattlesnake dead on the highway

I used to think
That it’s a good thing
To kill a rattlesnake dead on the highway
But with my heart broke like this
I’ll swerve to miss
When there’s a rattlesnake out on the highway
Oh! Don’t need more rattlesnakes dead on the highway

I watch you run
The Wyoming range plains
Between the mountains
Where it don’t rain
And when I see you
I’m the lucky one
To see a band of
Wild horses run

Run like it’s freedom
Run like it’s play
Pleasure has stolen
Your heart away
Run, run wild

Across the sunrise
Charging over that ridge
But you’re only running
To feel the wind
Kicking the dust up
Full gallop fun
Men run for glory
Mustangs just run


Run like it’s freedom
Run like it’s play
Pleasure has stolen
Your heart away
Run, run wild

Sometimes I ride out here
In the middle of night
Just sit and listen
While you run by
It sounds like thunder
Shakes me inside
Takes me back a million years
When I was wild


Run like it’s freedom
Run like it’s play
Pleasure has stolen
Your heart away
Run, run wild

Once upon a time, the official slogan for the state of Montana was “The Land of the Shining Mountains.” This is a Native American idiom which means snow-capped peaks.

My grandpa'd sit me on his leg
Tell stories of the frontier days
When he came west for the Montana gold rush
When the west was young, he’d say and smile
Men was hungry for gold, it was wild
You best go get your six-gun and your horse son, cause

It’s true, It’s true
There’s gold in the land of the shining mountains, It’s true

He found some gold, enough that he
Could buy some land it was his dream
A cattle spread on the river north of Great Falls
And every summer I'm at the ranch
On my horse, next to gramps
Ropin’ cows and riding wherever the trail calls

It’s true, It’s true…

Every morning that Grandpa could
He’d sit beneath this big cottonwood
He was listening like that tree was some sort of wise man
I ask, Whatcha hear under that big tree Gramps
He says, When you come to love the land
It will know and give you your own life back

It’s true, It’s true…

What do I know can give me my own live back
Only sit awhile and wait and listen for the shining ones to talk

Grandpa sat me down one day
He said, Money and gold they pass away
So I worked for the kind of things that will survive here
Soon I’ll be gone, I’m getting old
But there’s one last nugget of Montana gold
I see it burning in your chest like a fire

It’s true, It’s true
There’s gold in the land of the shining mountains
It’s true, still true
There’s gold in the land of the shining mountains
It’s true

Though it’s been years
I remember like it’s carved in stone
How the spirit came and helped me
In the land of Yellowstone

I was raised in Montana
Felt creation’s heartbeat everyday
We lost the ranch and moved to St. Paul
Had this aching inside that I couldn’t make go away.

But when I came to Yellowstone
The geysers shooting sulphur steam
Grizzly bear and snow-capped ranges
The land was stirring inside of me

Then I was
Kneeling in prairie grass and watching
Whole meadow’s black with buffalo
And gazing in their eyes I feel that heartbeat
The heartbeat I remember from long ago

Then I could feel it at the canyon
Like thunder from below
And from the bear just like the buffalo
Still felt that heartbeat when I got home
From the land of Yellowstone

Now I’ve got children of my own
May not leave them money when I go
But I’m leaving them something more
We spend our summers in the land of Yellowstone
We spend our summers in the land of Yellowstone

I’m from Western Dakota where the prairie goes forever
Rising and falling like the sea
There’s sun, and dust, and cactus, and the grass sticks to your pants
And the wind blows and blows with no relief

Most people, rush on through here, got somewhere else to go
Say, it’s empty, barren as the moon
But the land, it will find you, if you don’t mind some waiting
And then, like that grass, it will hold on to you

There’s a lone tree calling from that dry creek
There’s a hundred birds singing melodies
I stand out on the prairie between the earth and sky
I don’t feel alone--this land is alive

In the afternoon the thunderheads roll in from the west
Like clipper ships spread across the sky
I’m praying for rain, like every blade of grass
Like every blade of grass for a hundred miles

Ain't it funny how the flat land makes the sky so big
Ain't it funny how it makes the earth feel near
And when I can see forever, I feel bigger than myself
Unfolded, open to the spirit here

There’s a lone tree calling from that dry creek
There’s a hundred birds singing melodies
I stand out on the prairie between the earth and sky
I don’t feel alone--this land is alive

Last night I spent the night out beneath that dry creek tree
Having dreams the prairie’s covered with buffalo running free
And I wake up with to the drumming of their thundering stampede
Ain't it sweet? Oh this sweet Dakota prairie