Damascus Road

A smokin' night! The festival was coming to an end
A noisy celebration and a very special blend
Of country and of carnival for folks of every age
A cowboy in a Stetson hat was ripping up the stage
So who could ever in their dreams envision or foretell
The maniac out there unleashing seven shades of hell?

"Howdy!" said the concierge. The killer looked away
"The sun is going down," he said, "it's been a heavy day."
Sometimes, there are things we can't account or answer for
His elevator took him to the thirty-second floor
Something surely shifted on that rocky mountain road
Something many down the line would struggle to decode

Nothing on the table but another lousy deal
Watching yet another ball go dancing round a wheel
Dancing, always dancing, always messing with his head
Landing every time on that inevitable red
"Of all the gin joints in the world..." is what they'll likely say
He'd visited Damascus on the road to Mandalay

It's really nothing personal but, as far as I can tell
None of you have visited the darker side of hell
Where all there is to think of is the furnace and the fire
And shrieking little devils in a screaming amplifier
The door behind him closed and, for the final time that night
He checked the clock, then checked again his perfect line of sight

So time and tide had run its course. It came down to the wire
And shortly after 10pm the gunman opened fire
Nine hundred people took a hit, and maybe there were more
We know what was discovered when police blew down the door
An arsenal of weapons – they were legal, so they said
And on the floor, the body with a bullet through its head

Oh, questions there were many, but the answers never came
In under twenty minutes, they had come up with a name
But that was all. The rest was an enigma and a tease
Circling round a thousand different wild hypotheses
And meanwhile, down Damascus Road, a temple was in flames
With Saul, a spear through his heart, acclaiming Jesse James

And meanwhile, down Damascus Road, a temple was in flames
With Saul, a spear through his heart, acclaiming Jesse James...