Cottonseed

I came to tell my story to all these young and eager minds

Look in their unspoiled faces and their curious bright eyes

Stories of corruption, crime and killing, yes, it's true

Greed and fixed elections, guns and drugs and whores and booze

It's been a while since I put on a suit of my own clothes

And even longer since I cast my shadow on a church house door

They say every sin is deadly but I believe they may be wrong

I'm guilty of all seven, I don't feel too bad at all

And I used to have a wad of hundred dollar bills in the back pocket of my suit

I had a .45 underneath my coat and another one in my boot

I drove a big ole Cadillac, bought a new one anytime I pleased

And I put more lawmen in the ground than Alabama put cottonseed

I spent a few years on vacation, sanctioned by the state I mentioned

But see, a man like me don't do no time too hard to come back from

The meanest of the mean you see, you lock away and toss the key

But they're just loud mouth punks to me, I've scraped meaner off my shoe

Somewhere I ain't saying, there's a hole that holds a judge

The last one that I dug myself and I must admit I was

Sad to lay him in it but I did the best I could

Once his honor grows a conscience, well, folks, that there just ain't no good

And there's a pretty girl out there said, "Daddy, you stay cool tonight

All I need from you is to come home and be here by my side

Say what you gotta say to shut their Bibles and their mouths

If there was to tie a noose, they'd have to lay their Bibles down"

I ain't here to save no souls and even if I could

I could never save enough to put back half the ones I took

So if they rest in torment, you can't say it's 'cause of me

They'd long been bought and paid for like that fool's in Tennessee

And I used to have a wad of hundred dollar bills in the back pocket of my suit

I had a .45 underneath my coat and another one in my boot

I drove a big ole Cadillac, bought a new one anytime I pleased

And I put more lawmen in the ground than Alabama put cottonseed

And there's a pretty girl out there said, "Daddy, you stay cool tonight

All I need from you is to come home and be here by my side

Say what you gotta say to shut their Bibles and their mouths

If there was to tie a noose, they'd have to lay their Bibles down"