Lyr Add: Outcast (Tom Russell, Dave Van Ronk)

Subject: Lyr Add: OUTCAST (Tom Russell, Dave Van Ronk)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Apr 06 - 08:46 PM

THE OUTCAST
Words and music by Tom Russell

Oh, gather 'round me, people. Lend and ear now, if you please.
Your Promised Land was settled by bastards, drunks, and thieves.
Excuse me if it offends you, but I'm the worst of all of these.
I destroyed your family tree. I am the outcast.

I'm your inbred second cousin who was kept inside a shed.
I'm the cross-eyed little stutterer who always wet the bed.
I'm your queer uncle Harry, your retarded uncle Fred.
I'm the one they left for dead. I am the outcast.

I've embarrassed folks at weddings, birthdays, and at wakes.
I'm the cur who passed out face down in your anniversary cake.
I'm the black sheep, the philanderer, the louse, the souse, the rake,
The remittance man, the snake, the bloody outcast.

Forebear with your pity. My function's very plain.
We've come here from the Old World, and we've gone a touch insane.
On your social scale, you need a foil to bear the family stain.
I am the joker in your game. I am the outcast.

Oh, the black man and the Indian, the Chinaman, the Jew,
They built your friggin' railroad. They picked your cotton, too.
They washed your dirty laundry and they tied your children's shoes.
They got a right to sing the blues, 'cause they were outcasts.

Now we worship politicians as if they all were saints,
Put their faces on our money, pillow slips, and plates.
We should love this land for what it is, and not for what it ain't.
Ah, their game is fueled by hate, the hate of outcasts.

The Norwegians hate the Swedish, and the Swedes they hate the Finns.
The Finns they hate the Russians, and the Russians hate the Yids,
Spicks and wops and greasers, kikes, and spades and Guinea hens.
Hatred's blowin' in the wind, ten million outcasts.

"O beautiful for spacious skies and amber waves of grain"—
Grain distilled to make the rye that pickled old Tom Paine.
Old Georgie built the White House with slaves who died in pain,
But Georgie's quarries made the gain, from blood of outcasts.

Move in a little closer, now. The sideshow must begin.
History will repeat itself again, again, again.
On the immigration totem pole, the low man never wins.
Competition ain't a sin. God help the outcast!

So step right up, you pilgrims. The train's a-leavin' soon.
We got acreage out in Iowa for the likes of folks like you,
A quarter section on a flood plain, forty acres, and a mule.
Sign right here, you bloody fools. Welcome, ye outcasts!

[Sung by Dave Van Ronk as a guest spot on Tom Russell's album "The Man from God Knows Where," Hightone CD #8099, 1999. That album also has a cut called THE OUTCAST (REVISITED), which is the same tune with additional lyrics.]

[You can hear an archived radio program that contains this song. Go to this page, find the heading "Thursday, April 6, 2006," and click on the first link below the heading. The song begins about 32 minutes, 30 seconds from the beginning of the program.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Outcast (Tom Russell, Dave Van Ronk)
From: Midchuck
Date: 06 Apr 06 - 08:53 PM

Want to do Tom Russell pissed off...?

THE DEATH OF JIMMY MARTIN

Words and Music, Tom Russell

There's a hound dog running all alone through the piney woods
The howlin' tears the soul out of me
There's a jay bird calling up a funeral dirge
In ragtime harmony.
Barb'ry Allen rolled over in her grave all morning
There were roses growing out of her head
Hey, God's gonna burn down Nashville tonight
Jimmy Martin's dead
Ah, the great Jimmy Martin's gone dead

You got twenty twenty vision but you're walkin' 'round blind
You Grand Ole Opry fools
With your hypocritic judgments and your self righteous snobbery
And your God Damned false hearted rules.
You scorned Hank Williams and you shunned Jimmy Martin,
Boys who sang with tongues of fire.
Hey god's gonna burn down your Grand Ole Opry
Hear the screaming of the hypocrites and liars
They feel safer now that Jimmy has expired.

Run, Pete, run, your master's callin' you,
He's waiting on up ahead
Hey, don't look back, 'cause Nashville's burnin' down
Pete, Jimmy Martin's gone dead
The great Jimmy Martin's gone dead.

Well, don't call me no country singer
Those are poison words to me
'Cause I ain't heard a good country song
Since 1973.
The King of Bluegrass has died for your sins,
The Whore of Babylon's sleepin' in your bed.
And God's gonna burn down Nashville tonight, boys,
Jimmy Martin's dead
The great Jimmy Martin's gone dead.

Run, Pete, run, your master's callin' you,
He's waiting on up ahead
Don't look back, Nashville's burnin' down
Jimmy Martin's gone dead
The great Jimmy Martin's gone dead.

There's a hound dog runnin' all alone through the piney woods
The howling tears the soul out of me...

Peter