Drive By Truckers - Buford Pusser Trilogy from "The Dirty South"
1. No Online Version Found.
Lyrics -
Well, they caught you smoking grass and the judge threw the book
I can see a little opportunism in your look
You can take it from me, boy
You can take it from a crook
I got friends on the inside and friends on the outside
They'll sneak up beside you so keep on their good side
I can see you standing there, staring down at your shoes
Thinking about your Mom and Dad and wondering what to do
Well you best look inside yourself, boy, we're all watching you
We got friends in jail who will see you through
Boy, don't forget, no matter what you do
Don't piss off the Boys from Alabama
You know they won't let it slide
They might find your body in the Tennessee River
or they might not find you at all
There'll be no place to run and hide
and your family ain't safe at all
Don't piss off the Boys from Alabama
We're keeping an eye on you
Keeping an eye on you
Don't piss off the Boys from Alabama
Better take it like a man
Ain't nobody gonna stick anything up your ass
If you remember who your friends are
We got good help down in Franklin County
They'll hunt you like a dog
You can take your fall or lose it all
The choice is up to you
I wouldn't piss off the Boys from Alabama if I was you
2. The Buford Stick
Now Sheriff Buford Pusser's gotten too big for his britches
With his book reviews and movie deals
Down at the car lot making public appearances
For breaking up our homes and stills
I know he likes to brag how he wrestled a bear
But I knew him from the funeral home
Ask him for a warrant, he'll say "I keep it in my shoe"
That son of a bitch has got to go
That son of a bitch has got to go
Now they lined up around the block to see that movie
And crying for his ambushed wife
Marveling about about shot eight times and stabbed seven
Some folks can't take a hint
They say he didn't take no crap from the State Line Gang
What the hell they talking bout?
I'm just a hard workingman with a family to feed
And he made my daughter cry
Said he made my daughter cry
"Watch out for Buford!" is what they keep on telling me
But to me he's just another crooked lawman up in Tennessee
He gets a new hot car to keep us on our toes
And that ridiculous stick where the press corp. goes
And some big time Hollywood actors playing him on the big screen
"Watch out for Buford! He's shutting down our stills and whores"
But it ain't like he's all that different from what was there before
It wouldn't take my man long to do the job
Just a partially sawed through steering rod
And I wouldn't have to worry about the good Sheriff anymore
Now the funeral's got'em lined up for twenty blocks
No one liked that SOB when he's alive
But the ruckus he began keeps a spreadin' like a wildfire
Not sure if I'm gonna survive
Hit an embankment doing 120 on a straight-away
The Lord works in mysterious ways
They'll probably make another movie, glorifying what he done
But I'll never have to hear them say
I'll never have to hear them say
Watch out for Buford
3. Cottonseed:
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
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 a man like me don't do no time too hard to come back from
The meanest of the mean, I see you lock away and toss the key
But they're all just loud mouth 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
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
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
Further reading:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buford_Pusseren.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_mafiaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Line_MobGood music, good story (although told from the bad-guys point of view), true crime, gritty. Good guys and bad guys. It has everything.