| Along about eighteen twenty-five
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| I left Tennessee very much alive
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| I never would have got through the Arkansas mud
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| If I hadn’t been a-ridin' on the Tennessee Stud
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| I had some trouble with my sweetheart’s pa
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| And one of her brothers was a bad outlaw
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| I sent her a letter by my Uncle Bud
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| And I rode away on the Tennessee Stud
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| The Tennessee Stud was long and lean
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| The color of the sun, and his eyes were green
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| He had the nerve and he had the blood
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| And there never was a horse like the Tennessee Stud
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| One day I was riding in a beautiful land
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| I run smack into an Indian band
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| They jumped their nags with a whoop and a yell
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| And away we rode like a bat out of hell
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| I circled their camp for a time or two
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| Just to show what a Tennessee horse can do
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| The redskin boys couldn’t get my blood
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| 'Cause I was a-riding on the Tennessee Stud
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| We drifted on down into no man’s land
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| We crossed that river called the Rio Grande
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| I raced my horse with the Spaniard’s foal
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| 'Til I got me a skin full of silver and gold
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| Me and a gambler, we couldn’t agree
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| We got in a fight over Tennessee
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| We jerked our guns, and he fell with a thud
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| And I got away on the Tennessee Stud
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| I got just as lonesome as a man can be
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| Dreamin' of my girl in Tennessee
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| The Tennessee Stud’s green eyes turned blue
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| 'Cause he was a-dreamin' of a sweetheart, too
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| We loped right back across Arkansas;
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| I whupped her brother and I whupped her pa
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| I found that girl with the golden hair
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| And she was a-riding on the Tennessee Mare
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| Stirrup to stirrup and side by side
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| We crossed the mountains and the valleys wide
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| We came to Big Muddy, then we forded the flood
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| On the Tennessee Mare and the Tennessee Stud
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| A pretty little baby on the cabin floor
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| A little horse colt playing 'round the door
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| I love that girl with the golden hair
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| And the Tennessee Stud loves the Tennessee Mare |