The Black Rider

[instrumental]

Oily night (repeated)


Tracks

Come on people
Got to get on board
Train is leavin'
And there's room for one more
God, don't listen to the devil
He got ways to move you
This train don't carry no smokers
This train...

Well, come on people
'Cause it's startin' to rain
Get on board, it's the gospel train
Don't listen to the devil
Don't listen to the devil
Satan will fool you
Satan will fool you
I said Satan will fool you
Well, this train don't carry no smokers
This train
This train
Wooo
Wooo

Come on people: get on board
Train is leavin'
ANd there's room for one more
Just trust in the Lord
Wooo
Woooo
Woooo

Listen to me
Come on people
'Cause it's starting to rain
Get on board
Ride the gospel train
Don't listen to the devil
He got ways to move you

[instrumental]

I love the way
The tattered clouds
Go wind across the sky

As summer goes
And leave me
With a tear in my eye

I'm taking out my winter clothes
My garden knows what's wrong
The petals of my favorite rose
Be in the shadows dark and long

Through every year
It's very clear
I should be used
To carrying on
But I can't be found
IN the garden
Singing this song

When the last
Rose of summer is gone

The flash pan hunter sways with the wind
His rifle is the sound of the morning
Each sulfurous bullet way have it's own wit
Each cartridge comes with a warning
Beware of elaborate telescopic meats
They will find their way back to the forest

CHORUS
For Wilhelm can't wait
To be Peg Leg's crown
As the briar is strangling
The rose back down

His back shall be my slender new branch
It will sway and bend in the breeze
As the devil does his polka
Wit ha hatchet in his hand
As a sniper in the branches of the trees
As the vulture flutters down
As the snake sheds his dove
Wilhelm's cutting off his fingers
So they'll fit into his glove

CHORUS

The prettiest girl
In all the world
Is in a little Spanish town
But I left her for a Bonnie lass
And I told her
I'd see her around
But that Bonnie lass
And her heart of glass
Would not hold a candle

To bumming around
So don't cry for me
For I'm going away
And I'll be back some lucky day

Tell the boys back home
I'm doing just fine
I left my troubles and woe
So sing about me
For I can't come home
I've many more miles to go

Why, there's Miss Kelsey
You taught dance at our school
And old Johnny O'Toole
I'll still beat you at pool
So don't cry for me
For I'm going away
ANd I'll be back some lucky day

Now when I was a boy
My daddy sat me on his knee
And he told me
He told me many things
And he said sone
There's a lot of things in this world
You're gonna have no use for
ANd when you get blue
And you've lost all your dreams
There's nothin' like a campfire
And a can of beans

Why, there's Miss Kelsey
She taught dance at our school
And old Johnny O'Toole
I'll still beat you at pool
So don't cry for me
For I'm going away
And I'll be back some lucky day

Come on a long with the Black Rider
We'll have a gay old time
Lay down in the web of the black spider
I'll drink your blood like wine

So come on in
It ain't no sin
Take off your skin
And dance around your bones

So come along with the Black Rider
We'll have a gay old time

Anchors away with the Black Rider
I'll drink your blood like wine
I'll drop you off in Harlem with the Black Rider
Out where the bullets shine

And when you're done
You cock your gun
The blood will run
Like ribbons in your hair

So come along wit hthe Black Rider
We'll have a gay old time

Come on along with the Black Rider
I've got just the thing for thee
Come on along with the Black Rider
I want your company

I'll have the veal
A lovely meal
That's how I feel
May I use your skull for a bowl

Come on along with the Black Rider
We'll have a gay old time

Now, George was a good straight boy to begin with, but there was bad blood
In him; someway he got into the magic bullets and that leads straight to
Devil's work, just like marijuana leads to heroin; you think yo ucan take
Them bullets or leave 'em, do you?
Just save a few for your bad days

Well, now, we all have those bad days when you can't shoot for shit.

The more of them magics you use, the more bad days you have without them
So it comes down finally to all your days being bad without the bullets
It's magics or nothing
Time to stop chippying around and kidding yourself,
Kid, you're hooked, heavy as lead

And that's where old George found himself
Out there at the crossroads
Molding the Devil's bullets
Now a man figures it's his bullets, so it will
Hit what he wants to hit
But it don't always work that way

You see, some bullets is special for a single aim
A certain stag, or a certain person
And no matter where you are, that's where the bullet will end up
And in the moment of aiming, the gun turns into a dowser's wand
And point where the bullet wants to go

(George Schmid was moving in a series of convulsive spasms, like someone
with an epileptic fit, with his face distorted and his eyes wild like a
lassoed horse bracing his legs. But something kept pulling him on. And now
he is picking up the skulls and making the circle.)

I guess old George didn't rightly know what he's getting himself into
The fit was on him and it carried him right to the crossroads

I fell asleep down by the stream
And there I had the strangest dream
And down by Brennan's Glenn there grows
A briar and a rose

There's a tree in the forest
But I don't know where
I built a nest out of your hair
And climbing up into the air
A briar and a rose

I don't know how long it has been
But I was born in Brennan's Glenn
And near the end of spring there grows
A briar and a rose

P icked the rose one early morn
I pricked my finger on a thorn
It had grown so high
It's winding wove the briar around the rose

I tried to tear them both apart
I felt a bullet in my heart
And all dressed up in springs and clothes
The briar and the rose

And when I'm buried in my grave
Tell me so I will know
Your tears will fall
To make love grow
The briar and the rose