River Rat Jimmy - Kelly Joe Phelps

Drums are still playing

I can see them marching close

This he walks like a shadow

And that he dances like a ghost

The one that looks like Jimmy, Lord he scares me the most

River Rat Jimmy and Jehosophat

Playing boyhood mumblypeg

A six inch bowie blade

Out the top my redwing kickers

And down a muddy slippery grade

To the fever pitch savannah where grand daddy lay

River Rat Jimmy and Jehosophat

Little Jimmy ghostie face

Ate off the kitchen floor

Cause woman-Mum threw dinner plates

At drunken Dad on the door

He would cop his cans of beer

And close his eyes and soar

River Rat Jimmy and Jehosophat

Shouting revelation out

A boychild man of ten

Never looking up to heaven

Lord it was heaven there and then

And we wrapped our bloodied fingers like a shine-eyed mister zen

River Rat Jimmy and Jehosophat

Sho-ly, sho-ly

Neither of us knew who’d pop

And who would sink the lake

And who would run off fast enough before the bow string would break

Man we was crying for tomorrow

Through the crying and the shake

River Rat Jimmy and Jehosophat