Lyr Add: The Prayer (Redd Foxx, Ray Scott)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Prayer (Redd Foxx, Ray Scott)
From: GUEST,Hootennanny
Date: 06 Mar 20 - 12:59 PM

I have had this single for years. It certainly ain't a novelty song.

It was just putting the thoughts of many, many people into a "humourous" setting.

Great stuff

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Prayer (Redd Foxx, Ray Scott)
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 20 - 11:28 AM

Subject: Lyr Add: THE PRAYER (Redd Foxx, Ray Scott)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Aug 16 - 10:05 PM

This was mentioned in the thread about "novelty songs." The subject matter is certainly treated humorously here, but there is enough underlying anger that I have a hard time thinking of it as a novelty song.

You can hear this recording at YouTube. It is delivered in the style of an enthusiastic black preacher. It is spoken/chanted/intoned over organ music and a choir adding "amen" and other sounds. Of course "the governor" is George Wallace.

Jet magazine, in January 1971, said that 50,000 copies of the 45-rpm record had been sold despite having virtually no radio play. Surely more were sold after that article was published.


THE PRAYER
Written by Redd Foxx
As recorded by Ray Scott, 1970.

And now, ladies and gentlemen,
If you'll just bow your head in prayer,
We shall now pray for the governor.

O Lord,
Let the governor have a seventeen-car accident
With a gasoline truck
That's been hit by a match wagon
Over the Grand Canyon.

And if that's not bad enough for the governor,
Let the ambulances takin' him to the hospital
Have four flat tires.
Let the motor crack.
Let the block bust.
Let the windshield crack.
Let the driver have a stroke,
And a hemorrhage,
And run into a brick wall, Lord,
That's housing nuclear warheads and TNT, Lord.

And if that's not bad enough for the governor,
When he get to the hospital,
Let the doctor be a junkie
With a go-rilla on his back
And a 'rangutang in his room,
And let the hospital catch on fire,
And let the hospital ceiling cave in on the operating table,
And let the doctor have a rusty scalpel in his hand,
O Lord.

O Lord,
If that's not bad enough for the governor—
Lord, have mercy!—
Let him be stranded in the Sahara Desert
Ten thousand miles of dry sand,
Eyeballs bulgin',
Tongue swollen,
Lips cracked,
Crawling on his hands and knees,
And let him come up on a cool running fruit stand
Of frosty fruit juice in that hot desert,
And let them have a black waiter back there, Lord,
Like they always have.

And if that's not bad enough for the governor,—
Lord have mercy!—
Let lightning strike him in the heart
Thirty-eight times.
Let muddy water run in his grave,
And let possums, fourteen of 'em, suffering from hydrophobia,
Eat through the casket lookin' for some new meat;
And make him so ugly
Until he will resemble a go-rilla, Lord,
Suckin' hot Chinese mustard,
Lyin' across a railroad track,
With freight trains, twenty-two of 'em,
Runnin' across his kneecaps.

And if that's not bad enough for the governor,
Lord, let him suffer.
Make him live in agony.
When he wake up tomorrow morning,
O Lord, let him have nappy hair and be black like me.