Everett Ruess

I was born Everett Ruess
 I've been dead for sixty years
 I was just a young boy in my twenties
 The day I disappeared
 Into the Grand Escalante Badlands
 Near the Utah and Arizona line
 And they never found my body, boys
 Or understood my mind
 I grew up in California
 And I loved my family and my home
 But I ran away to the High Sierra
 Where I could live free and alone
 And folks said, "He's just another wild kid
 He'll grow out of it in time"
 But they never found my body, boys
 Or understood my mind
 I broke broncos with the cowboys
 I sang healing songs with the Navajo
 I did the snake dance with the Hopi
 And I drew pictures everywhere I go
 Then I swapped all my drawings for provisions
 To get what I needed to get by
 And they never found my body, boys
 Or understood my mind
 Well I hate your crowded cities
 With the sad and hopeless mobs
 And I hate your grand cathedrals
 Where you try to trap God
 'Cause I know God is here in the canyons
 With the rattlesnakes and the pinon pines
 And they never found my body, boys
 Or understood my mind
 They say I was killed by a drifter
 Or I froze to death in the snow
 Maybe mauled by a wildcat
 Or I'm livin' down in Mexico
 But my end, it doesn't really matter
 All that counts is how you live your life
 And they never found my body, boys
 Or understood my mind
 But you give your dreams away as you get older
 And oh but I never gave up mine
 And they'll never find my body, boys
 Or understand my mind