A                         G           A                   G
This was the night not long to come in the year of our Lord A.D.
  A                     G                    A               G
Where in a desert, way-house poised on the brink of eternity

 F        Dm     Am/E    Dm        F         Dm     Am/E Dm
Four and ninety studded horsemen closed the knot of honor
    F    Dm     Am/E  F   A  G
As only drunken soldiers can

     A                    G    A                       G
And passed from man to man, a wanton child to dead to care
      A                           G      A   G
That each would find his pleasure as he might
             A                     G     A                         G
For this fantastic night was billed, as nothing less than the end of an age
   A               G             A                       G
A last crusade, a final outrage, in this day of flacid plumage

F     Dm       Am/E     Dm        F  Dm  Am/E Dm
 And there was worn no cloth but leather
       F     Dm Am/E       F       A      G
 Made supple by years of stinging cinders

     A                    G       A
And here were seen, the scars of age
         G            A                    G                 F
for age had been the common call for one last night together

Solo: Eb  Dm

 Dm   C           Bb              Dm
Down colored the sky (the ritual feast)
 Dm   C   Bb                                Dm
Some had died (they were buried with their bikes)
 Dm    C       Bb                      Dm
Each grabbed a rag (from a man with a sack)
 Dm    C       Bb                      Dm 
Torn strips of color (the red and the black)

Bridge:  Dm    C Dm  NC

Dm C Dm           C       G C     Dm C Dm              C        G C
I,     came here willingly,   and I,     will go down valiantly
          Bb                            A
We made a vow to give it all we had to give
          Bb                    A     C  Dm
We made a vow to die as we had lived

Solo:  Dm

       Dm
They flew the colors, they began to fight
       Dm
They flailed at each other like bugs at a light
 Dm                               Dm                            Dm
Bodies and bikes beyond repair, smell of oil and gas in the air

         Dm                                       
Then the wind whipped the desert with a giant hand
         Dm                                              Dm
And the humans and the Harleys caught the shifting sand

        Dm
And the old ranger weathered the storm
        Dm
And he topped the rise by the middle of morn
        Dm                             C Dm NC
He saw rippled dunes, calm and surreal
       Dm                                C Dm NC
And a glint of a shaft of chromium steel
 Dm   C Dm        Dm  C Dm
Gold...   Golden age... 

  A       G
E|---------3---3-------------------------------------|
B|-2-2-2---3---3-------------------------------------|
G|-2-2-2---0---0-------------------------------------|
D|-2-2-2---0---0-------------------------------------|
A|-0-0-0---------------------------------------------|
E|---------3p2h3-------------------------------------|