I want to go back to the first lyrics in this thread, because Katherine's kidding striked something in me.
Is this a clue in the "would Jack quit Ennis?" mystery? (Hope not.)
Kidding or no kidding, this thought of yours is not so bad. I thought similar, but from a different angle:
Jacks does leave Ennis by dying. Jack's gone and Ennis is left behind. You could see this lyrics as a foreshadowing as well. In the movie, there are many foreshadowing things, or things that
could be considered as foreshadowing, to phrase it less definite. Just yesterday we mentioned it about the sign at Aguirre's trailer. Then there is the slaughtered sheep.
Ruthlessly once said, every music making (singing, humming, harmonica playing) by Ennis or Jack foreshadows Jack's death. For example, Ennis hums the Cowboys Lament (Streets of Laredo) before he encounters the bear - and it's about a dead cowboy. Jack plays 'He was a friend of mine' on the harmonica (again: Ruthlessly's words) when the tent don't look right and after they untangled the Chilean sheep from Aguirre's.
I was, and still am, critical about Ruthlessly's absoluteness, but he sure had a point there.
So music/lyrics as foreshadowing death is a very likely possibility in this movie and I think these specific lyrics do just that.
There is an additional aspect that makes me think that this specific song/lyrics show us Jack's death: in a long-ago thread we talked about colores, chlothes and their significance. Back then it was my idea that Jack was (maybe) already dead when Ennis and Cassie encounter at the diner. But both, Ennis and we, don't know it yet.
What made me think this was Ennis's jacket. He never wore this dark grey jacket before, but from the diner scene on, we see him in no other jacket than this. He wears it when he receives that fatal postcard and in every scene when Jack is dead. "Ennis didn't know about the accident for months..."
Haggard...Ennis. Yes, thats how he looks.
How fitting