Sweet Water Voodoo

Hopped a freight on a south bound train
From north Carolina to new Orleans
I stopped in Georgia before morning light
To catch me breath in front of swamp black eyes
Oh sweet water, I'm your guest tonight

With a dim flash light of a cigarette tip
Wisp of smoke rose up with a message written in it
It spoke of hard times now gone in the past
And a changing of skin venom exhausted at last
Oh sweet water, luring me back

Well i guess you'd like to know a little more about me
I was born with a peculiar ability to speak
With the souls of the dead still wandering between
This life and the next one forever left searching
Oh sweet water, I've come to set them free

Now the pines, welcome me home, tonight

Now my mother she was a little strange like me
But my father was not an honest character you see
He took me to the preacher to exercise demons
But in the house of the lord I only fell deeper within
Condoned to a cell in hospitals hidden away
Perfect specimen of the modern mans spiritual decay
With every numbing pill the path opened up inside
Free to roam the green pastures kept in my third eye
Oh sweet water please believe i tried

The warden had a daughter and her name was Elsie Mae
She would come around any time the doctors were away
After experiments and testing with electricity
We would speak of the simple joys of life's natural things
Oh sweet water, she was my only friend

Now the pines, welcome me home, tonight

Then one day I hear the warden racing down the hall
With scientific medical security guards
He swung open the door and slipped into a rage
I was smiling there next to his daughter Elsie Mae
He ordered them to shoot me down in that devils room
But an angel jumped in front of me and fell beyond view
Elsie Mae lay still like a feather in the dark
I let go a scream that stopped the old wardens heart
Panic broke out and I slipped in to the space
Between life and death to make my only escape
Sprinted through the gate and up over the fence
Bleeding barbed wire cuts and bones scraping within
Oh sweet water, what a mess I'm in

Running through the dark, torn rags with no shoes
I heard the voice of my love echo underneath the moon
Elise Mae spoke in a cadence like a song
Singing join me again into the distant beyond
Oh sweet water this is why I've come!