John Baptiste There was a gravedigger in a Northside graveyard His profession was covered with shame He dug down so neat, graves both narrow and straight And they say John Baptiste was his name But when the sun set on the great Salton Sea And the graveyard was shadowed in night With a spade in his hand he would lift out the sand Bringing new buried dead to the light He robbed them poor dead folks of clothing and shoes With none but the stars looking on And he made them a bundle up under his arm And took them to town for to pawn The pawnbroker hung a great sign on his store Get the best buy in funeral attire But he could not know that those clothes weren't for sale But only a short time for hire It was not long till the townspeople thought How so sudden this trade come about They went first to the judges and then to the graveyard And called that gravedigger out And when they uncovered the new buried dead There arose such a cry and a stir The ladies they fainted or covered their eyes Stark naked their relatives were John Baptiste, John Baptiste, you're called to the bar To listen while sentence is read To Fremont Isle you are exiled for life To starve there until you are dead They cast him ashore on that barren cold isle To fetch for himself all alone But when they returned only three weeks gone by John Baptiste the exile was gone They searched and they searched in the gullies and crags And wondered at the gravedigger's plight Some say he escaped on a driftwood raft Or swam to the mainland at night But shore dwellers say on a stormy cold day When the wind drives the waves on the land You can still see the ghost of old John Baptiste Come dragging his feet through the sand His clothes are all soaked in the salt and sea spray And tattered to bits by the storm And he carries a bundle of dead men's clothes All tucked up under his arm https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL58rDeFIsN-NvRk2oUP-SobRefkgZzGBE
|