[Verse 1]
Step up buddies, and listen to my song
Sing it to you right but you might think it wrong
It’s all about a man they called Otto Wood, wouldn’t tell you more but I wish I could

[Verse 2]
Stepped in a pawn shop a rainy day, and with the clerk he had a quarrel they say
He pulled out his pistol and struck him a blow and this is the way that the story goes

[Verse 3]
Folks spread the news as fast as they could, the sheriff served a warrant on Otto Wood
Jury said murder in the second degree and the judge passed a sentence to the penitentiary

[Chorus]
Otto, why didn’t you run? Otto’s done dead and gone
Otto Wood why didn’t you run, when the sheriff pulled out that forty-four gun?

[Verse 4]
First time they caught him was way out west, in a holdup game he got shot through the breast
They brought him back and when he got well, they locked him down in a dungeon cell

[Verse 5]
Put him in the pen, but it done no good, it wouldn’t hold a man they called Otto Wood
Well it wasn’t very long before he snuck outside, pulled a gun on the guard and said “take me for a ride”

[Verse 6]
Otto was a man they could not run, and he always carried a forty-four gun
He loved the women, Lord he hated the law, and he just wouldn’t take nobody’s jaw

[Chorus]
Otto, why didn’t you run? Otto’s done dead and gone
Otto Wood why didn’t you run, when the sheriff pulled out that forty-four gun?

[Verse 7]
He rambled out west and rambled all around, ’til he met two sheriffs in a southern town
Sheriffs said “Otto, step to the way, we been waiting on you every day”

[Verse 8]
He pulled out his gun and then he said, “you make a crooked move and you’ll both fall dead
Won’t you crank up your car and take me out of town” and a few minutes later he was graveyard bound