:: in.a.mirror.dimly :: A theology and culture blog with the Bible in one tab and a news feed in the other.

<%image(20050608-shotgun.jpg|124|89|shotgun)%> I am notoriously bad at catching the lyrics of songs. In fact, I’m so famous for botching up lyrics, I’m “infamous” (veiled reference to The Three Amigos). As if it wasn’t hard enough for me to pick up on the lyrics of crisp and clear CDs, it gets even worse when Julie fires up the record player. I just don’t have a prayer. Last night’s seleciton was Carol King’s infamous (in the 3 Amigo sense of being super-famous) album “Tapestry”. Though not exactly my style, it does have tons of hits on it and a few real catchy tunes, including the toe tapper, “Smackwater Jack.”

It has one of those all time great lines: “You can’t talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand.” Though I’m sure that plenty of congregations have their fair share of tension and some extreme cases may result in some form of violence, Carol just goes for the gusto here and takes this song way over the top. I do imagine a group of giggling pastors playing this song in the janitor’s closet, trading jabs about the squeaky wheels of the congregation. Since I could only catch that line and maybe another, I had to find the rest and found that the rest of the song is every bit as funny and just over the top.

Smackwater Jack

Smackwater Jack he bought a shotgun

Cause he was in the mood of a little confrontation

He just let it all hang loose

He didn’t think about the noose

He couldn’t take no more abuse,

So he shot down the congregation

You can’t talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand

Big Jim the Chief stood for law and order

He called for the guard to come and surround the border

Now from his bulldog mouth

As he led the posse south

Came the cry “We got to ride to clean up the street

For our wives and our daughters!”

You can’t talk to a man when he don’t want to understand

The account of the capture wasn’t in the papers

But you know, they hanged ole Smack right then (instead of later)

You know, the people where quite pleased

Cause the outlaw had been sized

And on the whole, it was a very good year for the undertaker

You can’t talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand

I’m not a big fan of absolute truth, but if there ever was an absolute, here it is:
You can’t talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand.

By the way, I absolutely love the picture of John Kerry with the shotgun. It’s just so “right-wing” of him. I’m sure he pacified his liberal counter parts by walking away from the gun saying, “I held it, but it wasn’t loaded!”