[1] The song is a lengthy ballad, in the vein of Bob Dylan, that tells the story of João de Santo Cristo, a poor man from the Brazilian Northeast who moves to Brasília in search of a better life, gets involved in drug trafficking, briefly abandons the life of crime for the love of a woman and is finally murdered by a rival.

[1] Despite its unusual characteristics for a folk song (168 different lines, no chorus and 9 minutes of playing time), "Faroeste Caboclo" was a smash hit.

[2][3] The song starts with the introduction of João do Santo Cristo (meaning "Holy Christ" in Portuguese) and his twisted childhood in the countryside of Bahia.

While growing up, he began flirting with a criminal lifestyle, stealing from the church's donation box, and seducing all the local girls; at age 15, he was sent to a correctional facility, where he started to think about the discrimination against people of his class and skin color.

There, in a coffee shop, he has a chance meeting with a rancher who had bought a non-refundable bus ticket to the country's capital, Brasília, DF.

In one of these parties, he meets his bastard cousin: a Peruvian man named Pablo who smuggled illicit merchandise from Bolivia.

One day, a very wealthy man arrived with a very shady job proposal, implied to be planting a bomb as an act of political terrorism (as Brazil was then under a military dictatorship).

João's activities then got the attention of Jeremias, a major local dealer known for throwing rock and drugs parties, who saw him as an intruder on his turf.