Reverend Mr. Black
He rode easy in the saddle, he was tall and lean
At first you thought nothing but a streak of mean
Could make a man look so downright strong
But one look in his eyes and you knowed you was wrong
He was a mountain of a man
And I want you to know he could preach hot hell or freezin' snow
He carried a Bible in a canvas sack
And folks just called him The Reverend Mr. Black
He was poor as a beggar
But he rode like a king
Sometimes in the evening
I could hear him sing
"I got to walk that lonesome valley
I got to walk it by myself
Oh, nobody else can walk it for me
I got to walk it by myself"
If ever I could have thought that this man in black
Was soft and had any yellow up his back
I gave that notion up the day
A lumberjack came in and it wasn't to pray
Yeah, he kicked open the meeting house door
And he cussed everybody up and down the floor
And then when things got quiet in the place
He walked up and cussed in the preacher's face
He hit that Reverend like a kick of a mule
And to my way of thinkin' it took a pure fool
To turn the other cheek to that lumberjack
But that's what he did, The Reverend Mr. Black
He stood like a rock, a man among men
Then he let that lumberjack hit him again
And then with a voice as kind as could be
He cut him down like a big oak tree when he said
"You've got to walk that lonesome valley
You've got to walk it by yourself
Oh, nobody else can walk it for you
You've got to walk it by yourself"
It's been many years since we had to part
And I guess I learned his ways by heart
I can still hear his sermons ring
Down in the valley where he used to sing
I followed him, "Yes, sir", and I don't regret it
Hope that I'll always be a credit to his memory
'Cause I want you to understand
The Reverend Mr. Black was my old man
You've got to walk that lonesome valley
You've got to walk it by yourself
Oh, nobody else can walk it for you
You've got to walk it by yourself
You've got to walk that lonesome valley
You've got to walk it by yourself
Oh, nobody else can walk it for you
You've got to walk it by yourself
At first you thought nothing but a streak of mean
Could make a man look so downright strong
But one look in his eyes and you knowed you was wrong
He was a mountain of a man
And I want you to know he could preach hot hell or freezin' snow
He carried a Bible in a canvas sack
And folks just called him The Reverend Mr. Black
He was poor as a beggar
But he rode like a king
Sometimes in the evening
I could hear him sing
"I got to walk that lonesome valley
I got to walk it by myself
Oh, nobody else can walk it for me
I got to walk it by myself"
If ever I could have thought that this man in black
Was soft and had any yellow up his back
I gave that notion up the day
A lumberjack came in and it wasn't to pray
Yeah, he kicked open the meeting house door
And he cussed everybody up and down the floor
And then when things got quiet in the place
He walked up and cussed in the preacher's face
He hit that Reverend like a kick of a mule
And to my way of thinkin' it took a pure fool
To turn the other cheek to that lumberjack
But that's what he did, The Reverend Mr. Black
He stood like a rock, a man among men
Then he let that lumberjack hit him again
And then with a voice as kind as could be
He cut him down like a big oak tree when he said
"You've got to walk that lonesome valley
You've got to walk it by yourself
Oh, nobody else can walk it for you
You've got to walk it by yourself"
It's been many years since we had to part
And I guess I learned his ways by heart
I can still hear his sermons ring
Down in the valley where he used to sing
I followed him, "Yes, sir", and I don't regret it
Hope that I'll always be a credit to his memory
'Cause I want you to understand
The Reverend Mr. Black was my old man
You've got to walk that lonesome valley
You've got to walk it by yourself
Oh, nobody else can walk it for you
You've got to walk it by yourself
You've got to walk that lonesome valley
You've got to walk it by yourself
Oh, nobody else can walk it for you
You've got to walk it by yourself
Credits
Writer(s): Mike Stoller, Jerry Leiber, Billy Wheeler
Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com
Link
Other Album Tracks
Altri album
- Their Best (Rerecorded Version) - Single
- Spring Break Reunion: American Dreamin' (M.T.A., Tom Dooley)
- Six of the Best - Folk - EP
- Let's Spend an Evening with the Kingston Trio
- The Kingston Trio Song Book
- The Lion Sleeps Tonight
- The M.T.A (Remastered)
- Scarlet Ribbons (Remastered)
- This Land Is Your Land (Remastered)
- El Matador (Remastered)
© 2024 All rights reserved. Rockol.com S.r.l. Website image policy
Rockol
- Rockol only uses images and photos made available for promotional purposes (“for press use”) by record companies, artist managements and p.r. agencies.
- Said images are used to exert a right to report and a finality of the criticism, in a degraded mode compliant to copyright laws, and exclusively inclosed in our own informative content.
- Only non-exclusive images addressed to newspaper use and, in general, copyright-free are accepted.
- Live photos are published when licensed by photographers whose copyright is quoted.
- Rockol is available to pay the right holder a fair fee should a published image’s author be unknown at the time of publishing.
Feedback
Please immediately report the presence of images possibly not compliant with the above cases so as to quickly verify an improper use: where confirmed, we would immediately proceed to their removal.