What's Good and Gone - Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires

In the beginning was the Word

And the small naked earth heard it

Hollers and graves were carved out

Men and mounds raised up from it

Before long strangers crossed oceans

And double-crossed every damn body

And before long the mounds were laid bare

And strip malls were put on top

And the strangers brought others

In the bows of their freighter ships

And this fearful land was built under

That whining infant nation's whips

Before long

They tried to tell these old boys down here

Just how to do things

We dug in to our sin till we were

Drinking muddy water

And eating shoestrings

Let us now praise it

What's good and gone

The screen door swinging

The porch light on

Let us now praise it

What's pure and past

Folks being folks

First being last

And we now

The sons of the hardened hearts

Who signed it all away

And all the hardened heads

Who filled all those unmarked graves

Will sip cold tea whose leaves were

Picked betwixt firing squads in Sudan

Sweetened with sugar chopped by

Bleeding Brazilian hands

And say "Ain't life grand "

Let us now praise it

What's good and gone

The screen door swinging

The porch light on

Let us now praise it

What's pure and past

Folks being folks

First being last

So gather around all ye wicked ones

Who wouldn't touch the stuff you're selling

Come all y'all shallow-chested cowards

Who wheeze with pleas for proof

Granddaddy taught unto me

The difference between telling a story

And storytelling:

One is bearing false witness;

The other is baring more truth than the truth

Let us now praise it

What's good and gone

The screen door swinging

The porch light on

Let us now praise it

What's pure and past

Folks being folks

First being last

Let us now praise it

What's good and gone

What's good and gone

What's good and gone