Rebel

Daddy, when I grow up

I want to paint my portrait true

Daddy, when I grow up

I want to be a rebel like you

     

From hell to breakfast man cuts him a path

To his long home over yonder, east of the tracks

I've come to see the country not to make good time

Hang you a horse thief, hang you a card cheat or two

     

Snake beat the heat of his own vice

Ate his apples wild and did not forget to exercise

The bitter fruit of truth culled from the tree

Of vanity you cannot escape

     

Daddy, when I grow up

I want to paint my portrait true

Daddy, when I grow up

I want to be a rebel like you

     

Old Bill Faulkner, the whiskey chief

With his songs of life and his black-eyed peas

He spread his wings and flew across the big bad sea

Came back a poet with a beard and a coat of fleas

     

Bill walks into a mississippi bar

God is dead, he screams, God is dead

But ain't nobody listening to the little southern man

Eating homemade drop biscuits and country fried ham

     

Daddy, when I grow up

I want to paint my portrait true

Daddy, when I grow up

I want to be a rebel like you

     

Fred Douglas begged brown to heel

Don't do it, Johnny! Don't do it, Johnny!

200 sharps and one thousand pikes

Don't do it, Johnny. Don't do it Mr. Brown!

     

Robert E. Lee and his fatal memory

All for the sake of his sweet Virginny

Hours mount like United States

Turning days to years, campaigns to clear our conscience

     

Daddy, when I grow up

I want to paint my portrait true

Daddy, when I grow up

I want to be a rebel like you