A wiser, abler man would have arranged this more tastefully. My apologies.
The New South
Sitting in the back of my Paw-Paw’s pickup
Riding out of Greer with a bucket full of chicken
Stop at the Pantry with a dollar in my pocket
For Big League Chew and a packet of Snap-Pops
Fifteen miles down State Road 20
Park in the back of the Church of the Plenty
And walk through the woods with a styrofoam cooler
For old-time rewind family renewal
And the New South is creeping like kudza
And the good guys won the War
And nobody ever gets hookworm
And Atticus Finch doesn’t live here anymore
This is where Paw-Paw used to go fishing
They’re calling it the Canebreak Subdivision
Just like string beans, crinolines, and okra
One more thing we’re gonna pave over
We used to see the mermaids down in Weeki Wachi
Used to go to Miami, now it’s Miami
Used to be a Bunny Bread sign at the corner
Used to never hear about South of the Border
Chorus
We stand by the water when the chicken’s all gone
He says, “Boy, make a wish now, and make it a good one.”
Paw-Paw throws in his lucky penny
And we walk back to the Church of the Plenty
Chorus
Babies & Monkeys
Do you remember how you used to sign
With innocent amazement?
And how the angels clapped their hands
And hid their puzzled faces?
And I was throwing ice at the walls
Waiting to get sober
Waiting for my chance to lead the Fall
Waiting to jump over
Flipping the angels off, I stumbled at the gate
You followed after me and it was too late
We had a love like Pharaoh and the Jews
I gave a bit, you bartered
And every time you snuck into my heart
It got a little harder
You did me a world of good
When you finally left me
But if I had you in Egypt again
I wouldn’t make it easy
Bring on the locusts, I’m a dedicated man
I’ll be here waiting when you draw back your hand
We blew it all once before
When we were in Eden
But so help me, I’ll knock at your door
And we can get even
Come up to the gates with me
The angel’s been drinking
Sneak into what should be ours
Get back to a good thing
With babies and monkeys swinging naked in the trees
And hide with me underneath those sweet forbidden leaves
I Want A Flava Flav
I want a Flava Flav
To back me up on everything I say
I want to be urged on
I want to be a mastodon
I want my voice to pound
To crack the earth and let dead men out
I want to be the one to save
And I want a Flava Flav
I want a magazine
To pioneer my new regime
I want my picture shown
I want my megaphone
I want to be caught on tape
In a compromising state
She is my Magdalene
I want my magazine
I want an X-ray eye
To crack the code of the by and by
I’ll rise into the air
And chase ascending prayers
Till the horizon bends
Turn them to my own ends
I'll drink the heavens dry
I want an X-Ray eye
I’m Gonna Fly Right Out Of This World
Nothing to do, watching the wind blow by
Nothing to do, watching the wind blow by
Daddy’s in Memphis, Mama be home by nine
Granny’s asleep, keeping away from the flies
And I’m gonna fly right out of this world
I’m gonna fly right out of this world
I’m gonna fly right out of this world
I’m gonna make it rain a million pearls
People come calling, chase them away with a dog
People come calling, chase them away with a dog
Casseroles and money, flowers and the Twenty-Third Psalm
Don’t need nothing, best be moving on
Chorus
Call the police, Granny’s about to die
Call the police, Granny’s about to die
Jesus is ready, she’s got a home on high
But she’s hanging on so Mama can say goodbye
Chorus
Easy
Hell if I know how
But I appear to settled down
Got four walls to hold me in
Let Jesus take away my sin
I’m happier than I’ve ever been
If you really want to know
But deeper in my heart
There’s a stream of something cold and dark
Still keeps me awake at night
It makes me jerk, it makes me bite
It holds me like a lover that won’t let go
Now you come around
Creeping back from the other side of town
It only takes one look to see
The sandy fear inside of me
That gets in every corner of my mind
Until the pieces stick and grind
And I’m collapsing in the yard
You say, “Man, you’re not alone.”
We start with just a pint
A little taste of the old times
Then we go out for a ride
And you pull out that .45
I squeeze one off and man I feel alive
It’s like a hundred years went by
And I was sleeping with my wife
You say, “Man, it’s good to see that look in your eye.”
We never see the deer
It’s like it suddenly appears
Tears the fender off the car
I can hear it screaming in the dark
We track it by the sound
You say, “You know we’re gonna have to put him down.”
Head back to the car for a couple of rounds
Shaking in the weeds
A bleeding deer and you and me
I watch him kick and try to breathe
I feel my finger start to squeeze
But I never heard a sound
Till I shoot off every round
And I can smell the blood on the ground
And on you and me
And you say, “Easy, man! Easy!”
Angelina
Angelina said to me,
“I can’t get any closer.
I’ve run out of words and ways
To win you over.
I was patient, I was true,
I held you when you fell apart
Waiting for your tired pride
To rest upon my foolish heart
But hold me in your arms
I need a little sympathy
And I’m too weak to hold
Your careful heart away from me.”
Angelina took my hand
And traced a circle on her skin
“Tell me one of your sweet lies
The kind I love believing
Comb my hair and sing to me
Then pour us both another drink
Get me out my favorite jeans
And take me to the roller rink
Then spin me once around
And leave before the slow song ends
I’ll light the mirror ball
And ride between its fingerprints.”
What You Gonna Do?
What you gonna do when the good Lord comes
Like a thief in the night when the day is done?
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
When it comes time for the great roll call
I’m gonna head right over to the shopping mall
Gonna watch that fire and brimstone fall
Gonna play my tape of And Justice For All…
Gonna get me a Whopper and two Big Macs
Stratocaster and a Marshall stack
Turn the knobs all up to ten
Play Freebird again and again
Chorus
Then I’m gonna get me a rocking chair
Gonna sit there rocking in my underwear
Gonna wait for the train to the Kingdom Come
Gonna walk right over and stick out my thumb
Gonna talk to Jesus in the baggage car
Sitting there puffing on a big cigar
Singing old Billy Joe Shaver songs
In the New Jerusalem all night long
Chickasaw
I’m an Escort man with a pickup dream
Being executed on a drum machine
I come back here to settle a score
But it’ll never be like it was before
I lost my heard in Arkansas
Lost a friend in Chickasaw
Ask me why, I can’t recall
I left my troubles in a rock and roll bar
All I need is your blue jeans
Then I get all goofy and I act thirteen
You got lips and I got some too
I might be rubber but I’m stuck on you
Chorus
I learned this song from Buzzy the Pimp
He was testifying with an Eight Ball limp
He told me, “Son, you better learn to sing
You got jelly feathers and a broken wing
Chorus
The Penny Song
If I had one wish
I’d ask for a thousand tongues
And a thousand more songs
And I’d sing them to you all at once
A couple of songs about loneliness
A couple of songs about fear
A couple of songs about wanting to leave
And the rest about staying right here
If you got a haircut
The worst one that I’d ever seen
I’d say you were perfect
And everyone else is just mean
They’re jealous, they’re bitter, they’re full of regret
And they just put you down to feel big
If they only saw you the way you see me
We wouldn’t have problems like these
If I had one dollar
I would show neither caution nor care
I’d change it for pennies
And I’d throw them all up in the air
If they land on the heads then I love you so true
If they land on the tails you love me
If they land in the river and never are found
The robins will take to their wings
And we’ll just have to see what we see
Rhinestone in the rough
Well I drank up every ear of corn in town
And I found that barn and I burned it to the ground
And I threw my bottle down
I was eight years old when they took me to the barn
Where they held me down by the ankles and the arms
And they left me in the dark
When the sky grew dim
And the moon was hanging low
There was ever light enough
For I shine within
With a cool and empty glow
Like a rhinestone in the rough
The next three years was dust and empty cars
Where I sang my song to a plastic toy guitar
And the judgment of the stars
Till they ran me down at the Ooltewah Hotel
Where they tore my clothes and they left me in a cell
And I damned them all to hell
Twenty days and fifteen hundred dollars gone
She was waiting there with her golden slippers on
Telling me to raise the dawn
chorus
She made our home in an empty prison tower
And I stayed with her till my sympathy went sour
In a cold December hour
There were friends abandoned to their own supply
There were hearts laid bare to the coldness of my eye
There were graces left to die
From my mother's breast to the children of the Fall
I have made myself unwelcome to them all
When I heard that hollow call
chorus
I have laid my head in the bosom of the Lamb
I have wandered lost in the circles of the damned
I have stood at their command
For Elijah called me to the saints in light
But I caught his car and I dragged it from the sky
And I rode it through the night
The Second Coming
Harvey was an evil adolescent
Turning good girls into mothers
And the mothers into whores
It’s every good little boy’s dream
To have his own little dream team
A silent army to watch him dreaming
Audrey took a two by four across her
Pretty face before she left him
With a knife inside his arm
She got the heck out of Phoenix
She met a radical genius
And bought an acre of Indiana corn
Carly met her match in Ponte Vedra
Lost her maidenhead at blackjack
And a grand on jai alai
She had to cover the losses
She made aluminum crosses
Out of beer cans and Jägermeister labels
Maxy kissed him one too many babies
Had to move into the shelter
Took a job delousing dogs
And the girl from the News Team
With the incredible boobies
Kept the vigil with Greg from Channel 7
And I sleep in a tree in West Virginia
I am silent in the darkness
I have bourbon and a knife
I walk out on the branches
I see a coming disaster
I’ll have a seat for the Second Coming any day
Lift me up
If you find me in the field
Worn down by a driving wheel
Would you lift me up
Lift me up
If I fall beneath the load
Broke down on a dead-end road
Would you lift me up
Lift me up
Would you lift me up
Lift me up
Would you lift me up
Some morning
Lift me up
When I fall from te wisdom tree
And the birds circle over me
Would you lift me up
Lift me up
When the voice of thunder rolls
Take pity on a weary soul
And lift me up
Lift me up
Chorus
When I lay in the cold ground
Tear the old red curtain down
And lift me up
Lift me up
Chorus
