Crickets are chirpin’, the water is high There’s a soft cotton dress on the line hangin’ dry The window’s wide open, african trees Bent over backwards from a hurricane breeze Not a word of goodbye, not even a note She’d gone with the man in the long black coat
Somebody seen him hangin’ around At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask Somebody said from the Bible he’d quote There was dust on the man in the long black coat
Preacher was a-talkin’, there’s a sermon he gave He said every man’s conscience is vile and depraved You cannot depend on it to be your guide When it’s you who must keep it satisfied It ain’t easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat She gave her heart to the man in the long black coat
There are no mistakes in life, some people say And it’s true sometimes, you can see it that way But people don’t live or die, people just float She went with the man in the long black coat
There’s smoke on the water, it’s been there since june Treetrunks uprooted ’neath the high crescent moon Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumblin’ force Somebody is out there beating on a dead horse She never said nothin’, there was nothin’ she wrote She’d gone with the man in the long black coat