The Tropics - Bertie Higgins

So you've come to the Tropics

And heard all you had to do

Was sit in the shade of a coconut glade

The pesos rolling to you

They told you that at the border

But get your directions straight

Hear what it did to another kid

Before you decide your fate

I started out to be honest

Put everything on the square

But a boy can't fool with the Golden Rule

With a crowd that won't play fair

It was a case of winning in a dirty race

Or dying with a losing hand

My only hope so I could hold

With steal a horse of another man

The Tropics they're worse than the habit

The burning blazing sun

You break away and swear you'll stay

The Tropics call and back you come

I pulled a deal down in Brazil

In an Inca silver mine

Before they found it was salted ground

I was safe in Argentine

I sell a lot to pirate's gold

'Round Cuba into the Keys

I gave my soul in pirate's gold

Trying to buy myself free

They called me a soldier of fortune

But I sold myself like a whore

Peddling booze through the Santa Cruz

And Winchester 44's

Made unafraid by my drunken aid

The bastards came roaring down

And left in a shivering blazing mass

A tiny border town

The Tropics they're worse than the habit

The burning blazing sun

You break away and swear you'll stay

The Tropics call and back you come

I was next in charge of a smuggler's barge

In the Straits of Yucatan

But she sunk in a hole off Mexico

One night in a hurricane

I got to shore on a broken oar

In the filthy shrieking dark

And the other two of the good ship's crew

Became a banquet for the shark

On a fiery hot flea ridden cot

I was dying with the yellow jack

Alone in the sun and damn near done

She found me and pulled me back

She came like the Virgin Maria

And opened my fevered eyes

Upon me shone a brand new dawn

As I turned my face to the sky

The Tropics they're worse than the habit

The burning blazing sun

You break away and swear you'll stay

The Tropics call and back you come

There was pride and grace in her brown young face

For hers was the blood of kings

In her eyes shone the glory of empires gone

She was wearing the devil's ring

You see these punctures in my arm

You know what they mean

They were left right there by my lady fair

Ms Morphine

I was dealt the eights and aces

Some call the dead man's hand

God knows I'm not the one to blame

For I'm only a mortal man

Whatever you play whatever the way

For stakes that are large or small

The claws of the tropics will gather your pile

The dealer gets it all

The Tropics they're worse than the habit

The burning blazing sun

You break away and swear you'll stay

The Tropics call and back you come

The Tropics they're worse than the habit

The burning blazing sun

You break away and swear you'll stay

The Tropics call and back you come