Cottonseed

Lyrics

I came to tell my story to all these young and eager minds To look in their unspoiled faces and their curious bright eyes Stories of corruption, crime and killing, yes it's true Greed and fixed elections, guns and drugs and whores and booze It's been a while since I put on a suit of my own clothes And even longer since I cast my shadow on a church house door They say every sin is deadly, but I believe they may be wrong I'm guilty of all seven, and I don't feel too bad at all And I used to have a wad of hundred-dollar bills in the back pocket of my suit I had a .45 underneath my coat and another one in my boot I drove a big ole Cadillac, bought a new one anytime I pleased And I put more lawmen in the ground than Alabama put cottonseed I spent a few years on vacation, sanctioned by the state I mentioned But see, a man like me don't do no time too hard to come back from The meanest of the mean you see, you lock away and toss the key But they're just loudmouth punks to me, I've scraped meaner off my shoe Somewhere, I ain't saying, there's a hole that holds a judge The last one that I dug myself and I must admit I was Sad to lay him in it, but I did the best I could Once his Honor grows a conscience, well folks, that there just ain't no good And there's a pretty girl out there said, "Daddy, you stay cool tonight All I need from you is to come home and be here by my side Say what you gotta say to shut their bibles and their mouths If they was to tie a noose, they'd have to lay their bibles down" I ain't here to save no souls and even if I could I could never save enough to put back half the ones I took So if they rest in torment, you can't say it's cause of me They'd long been bought and paid for like that fool's in Tennessee And I used to have a wad of hundred-dollar bills in the back pocket of my suit I had a .45 underneath my coat and another one in my boot I drove a big ole Cadillac, bought a new one anytime I pleased And I put more lawmen in the ground than Alabama put cottonseed There's a pretty girl out there said, "Daddy, you stay cool tonight All I need from you is to come home and be here by my side Say what you gotta say to shut their bibles and their mouths If they was to tie a noose, they'd have to lay their bibles down"