Here's how I hear it, with corrections boldfaced. I have also inserted line breaks so that the rhymes appear at ends of lines. I transcribed this from Spotify, but you can also see an official video of this song on YouTube. The composer credit is from Allmusic.com and BMI.com.


MISSISSIPPI SQUIRREL REVIVAL
Words and music by Cyrus W. Kalb, Jr. & Carlene B. Kalb
As sung by Ray Stevens on "Greatest Hits: 50th Anniversary Collection" (2008)

Well, when I was a kid, I'd take a trip
Ev'ry summer down to Mississip'
To visit my granny in her antebellum world.
I'd run barefooted all day long,
Climbin' trees, free as a song.
One day I happened to catch myself a squirrel.

Well, I stuffed him down in an ol' shoe box
An' punched a couple holes in the top.
When Sunday came, I snuck him into church.
Well, I's sittin' way back in the very last pew
Showin' him to my good buddy Hugh
When that squirrel got loose and went totally berserk.

What happened next is hard to tell.
Some thought it was heaven; others thought it was hell,
But the fact that somethin' was among us was plain to see.
As the choir sang "I Surrender All,"
The squirrel ran up Harv Newman's coveralls
And Harv leaped to his feet and said, "Somethin's got a hold on me!"

CHORUS: The day the squirrel went berserk
In the First Self-Righteous Church,
In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula,
It was a fight for survival
That broke out in revival.
They were jumpin' pews and shoutin', "Hallelujah!"

Well, Harv hit the aisle dancin' and screamin'.
Some thought he had religion; others thought he had a demon,
And Harv thought he had a Weed-Eater loose in his Fruit of the Looms.
He fell to his knees to plead and beg,
And that squirrel ran out his britches leg
Unobserved to the other side o' the room,

All the way down to the amen pew,
Where sat Sister Bertha Better-than-You
Who'd been watchin' all the commotion with sadistic glee.
Should 'a' seen that look in her eyes
When that squirrel jumped her garters and crossed her thighs
And she jumped to her feet, said, "Lord, have mercy on me!"

As that squirrel made laps inside her dress,
She began to cry and then to confess
To sins that'd make a sailor blush with shame.
She told of gossip and church dissention,
But the thing that got the most attention
Is when she talked about her love-life and then she started namin' names.

CHORUS

Well, seven deacons and the pastor got saved,
And twenty-five thousand dollars was raised,
And fifty volunteered for missions in the Congo on the spot,
And even without an invitation,
There were at least five hundred rededications,
And we all got rebaptized whether we needed it or not.

Now, you've heard the Bible story I guess,
How He parted the waters for Moses to pass—
Oh, the miracles God has wrought in this ol' world!—
But the one I'll remember till my dyin' day,
Is how he put that church back on the narrow way
With a half-crazed Mississippi squirrel.

CHORUS