Black River Falls (2002)

04-02-2023:
I got pretty frustrated with there being nearly no lyrics, and if they were there, they were usually incorrect, so I started this page as a repository of “as correct as possible” Reverend Glasseye lyrics. Kinda wild how it's been 20 years and there's still songs missing. Lyrics between parentheses are what I / the source think it is, so if you happen to hear different things there that seem more plausible, please let me know!
If you can provide any transcriptions for the missing songs (or corrections for the ones that are there) I'd be immensely grateful!
Contact: asoftbi.rd@gmail.com

11-01-2023 Update:
I've managed to find a bunch of songs on an old Web Archive page of Rev's old website (click “next song” at the bottom for the other songs, goes up to 14).
The lyrics there seem to be an older version and aren't quite right either but I've used all sources I could find to write down the lyrics as accurately as possible.
Unfortunately the lyrics for the titular song are missing from here.
Using this resource I've added/corrected lyrics for 50% Murder, Carnival of Pills, One More Smoke, Paddywagon Turban, Penitentiary Highball, Seven Little Girls.

01. Midnight Cabaret

All Woe Jane stood in the parlour room
Drunk enough to tell it to the moon
And the party wasn't here and there's bills to pay
But she hasn't seen her lawyer since Saint Agnes Day
The Brothers' Finn begin with a scotch on rocks
Good thing that the scholars never learned to talk
And they took down forty chapels just to fill them in
And this is where the party will begin

Welcome my friends to the midnight cabaret
Where the drinks are free but you really must stay
We'll dance all night till the house falls down
But we'll never pull your body from the bleeding ground
We'll never pull your body from the ground

Little Bradley's ruined and he's only seventeen
Head shaped like a pool cue and a thing for gasoline
Set his house aflame and he didn't get a cent
Because he's four months late upon his first month's rent
House is reinvented for the newlyweds
Good thing that their contract, surely went unread
Then he put his wife to bed and the bed fell through the floor
And he jumped out of the window couldn't take it anymore

04-02-2023: (note: "Good thing that the dolly never learned to talk / And they took down forty chapels just to fill them in" is what's currently most plausible, but it doesn't seem to make sense, so I'm not sure if that's what the lyrics actually are!)

11-01-2023: Reverend's old website mentions “Funny how the scholars never learned to talk / Took Down Forty chapels just to fill them in” but “Good thing” is clearly heard, so that's what I updated it to.

02. (x) No Road out of Houston

11-01-2023: Note: the lyrics provided on Reverend's website seem to be a different, older version. Only the first two lines match. Everything else is transcribed as far as I could.

The Highway patrolman is bald
And I can see you dancing in his skull

(The decan whispers something obscene)
It seems so clear I'll be stuck (…) I'm scared
And it seems that you're not here
No Road Out of Houston)

[work in progress!]

03. 50% Murder

Ah said the old night rider
On questioned where to stand
That he left old Plymouth county
Ended in the Rio Grande
Eyes with empty pockets
Under the train station lights
And some folks still shudder
When thinking on that night
For there was no trail, nor hanging,
No witness while the woe
No neck would get no rug burn
Out on the gallow's pole
Got out in Old Fort Worth
With blood upon their hands
Stopped briefly for a beer
And then on the train again

This train is moving
This train is moving
This train is moving away
Thirty ought six and three wild horses
Pulling the devil's trail
Away, away, away

On the gates of desperate times
We'll hang the dollar on the wire
And call it friendly gambling
Like the broker to the Friar
It seems old Colonel Custer
And his pray, Ol' Lionel Pile,
Stand shaking in the cabin
There's miracles tonight
The abrasion's on his wrist
We couldn't look away
It seemed that something's not right
Colonel Custer got away
Got back in Carolina,
With three beers in his guts
To add the six of thousands
Led to several savage cuts

This train is moving
This train is moving yeah
This train is moving away
Thirty ought six and three wild horses
Pulling the devil's trail
Away, away, away,

The poor men at the crossroads
Where the lion's lightly lie
And drink from sacred promises
Under the scarlet ribboned night
Oh the righteous have no glory,
And the gospel has no tone
When the twelve shed in sixes
And no-one's going home
One night in west Virginia
And one night in Birmingham
Hard to be the Horror
Harder still to be them
Better to be Jesse James
When fighting honest men
Than to kill 'em all together
Like at the old Ho Chi Minh

This train is moving
This train is moving yeah
This train is moving away
Thirty ought six and three wild horses
Pulling the devil's trail
Away, away, away

So swung the foul tempter,
Upon capturing the flag
Laid flat their eyes on the sunlight
With their dirty money bag
And no saving may be needed
Down in this sunken hole
Where they dream in panorama
'Bout the swinging gallow's pole
Oh and on this train till sun up
Becomes the only resting place
Wrinkles rim the wire with
This awful tattooed face
For no tear is left unbloodied
This brick house is condemned
And they're stuck upon the railroad
Damned to ride the train again

This train is moving
This train is moving yeah
This train is moving away

04. (x) Blood O' Lambs

11-01-2023: The lyrics on Reverrend's website appear to be an entirely different song with the same name :(

05. Penitentiary Highball

"Penitentiary highball: A mixture of strained shellac and milk" Informal English, pg 151, 2005
“[..] plays on the highball, a whiskey and soda (from the tall or ‘high’ glass and the ball, or shot of whiskey, it contains); it is a home-brewed prison alcohol based on strained shellac and milk.” Crooked Talk: Five Hundred Years of the Language of Crime, pg 320, 2011

Polly, Pretty Polly, won't you stay the night with me
We'll climb upon the highway and we'll climb the old birch tree
I've never met no one sweeter more persistent or more fair
Polly jumped and flipped a dime, with those beads in her hair

The caravan was empty and Saint Peter wasn't there
Polly jumped and flipped a dime the beads ran through her hair
then came the Holy Roller and he stabbed her with his spade
fourty miles from Plymouth Town
that's where Pretty Polly laid

Oh come ye Velvet Beggars
With Cannon, Dill and Grain
Penitentiary Highball that
Stuck along the spine
No they didn't get no older
and they didn't seem to mind
Polly and her baby there
Lying side by side

And he never saw the baby, though he fumbled with his mitt
Although he was so heavy, always had a place to sit
Up jumped the preacher's daughter and slowly swept the guilt
One more chance of freedom and then slowly up the hill

Oh these Velvet Beggars grabbed her
and the piled her in their Ford
Drove her off to Plymouth Town
in the fashion of the Lord
The road was so unholy and they wanted to go home
Couldn't make the highway out
From this road made of bone

And he never saw the baby, when he fumbled with the noose
Although he was so heavy, always had a place to choose
Alone by the roadside was a private county fair
one more chance of freedom and Pretty Polly wasn't there.

Polly, Pretty Polly, won't You stay the night with me
We'll climb upon the highway and we'll climb the old birch tree
I've never met no one sweeter more persistent or more fair
Polly jumped and flipped a dime, with those beads in her hair

06. Seven Little Girls

The water level's rising
Underneath the Crescent Moon
And the little girls are strangled
And the little boys are screwed
My father came up to me
Along the wounded knee
Saying "Boy you won't believe it
but nothing here is free"
See as goes the little saying,
He broke the mighty spoon
The son tears upon the leaves
Under the Crescent Moon
The Father says "We shouldn't"
The Son He says "he should"
Cause He's got a daughter made of stone
and a son who's made of wood

And I said, "Oh my Lord,
Oh my Lord! Oh my Lord!
My Lord!"

Tell little JonBenét
That it's almost Christmas Day
And the chimney needs a sweeping
Before the dear can play
But a stranger came up to the door
Alone on Christmas Eve
Saying Jony, Jony, Jony,
Jony, do you love me
But Jon she had the wildest eye
She had the wildest tongue
and spoke not only to the old
But also to the young
And its a rat upon the door step
Its a breeze through the front door
and there's blood upon the alleyway
and a body in the morgue

And I said, "Oh my Lord,
Oh my Lord! Oh my Lord!
My Lord!"

And if this story's got a moral
Well as surely it must have
The Little Girls don't stand up
But stumble a beaten path
And we are just the cappings
All along the Devil's Tooth
Aloof like Cain and Abel
And let down like John Wilkes Boothe

And I said, "Oh my Lord,
Oh my Lord! Oh my Lord!
My Lord!"

And in the middle of the spring
Little girl lays down to cry
The Bow is pushed upon her hand
And no tears in her eye
Oh my little mountain friend
I will never see you again
It's time to roll and I might as well
And I'll see you again in Hell

And I said, "Oh my Lord,
Oh my Lord!"
I said “Oh my Lord!”
For the seven little girls
And I said "Oh my Lord,
Oh my Lord,
Oh my Lord!"

07. 3 Ton Chain

Mary held on to the three ton chain
Every little link was in our lord's name
A little bit further down the road, boys
A little bit further down the road

She pulled on the sleeves of her dear old pa
Ain't we gonna stop before Arkansas?
A little bit further down the road, boys
A little bit further down the road

This troubled land is all I see
These troubled visions of the gallows tree
And a little bit further down the road, boys
A little bit further down the road

The last place we stopped, they were unkind
My pa's hands trembled and we got back in line
And a little bit further down the road, boys
A little bit further down the road

We found a pasture near a lovely well
My pa said it would lead us straight to hell
And a little bit further down the road, boys
A little bit further down the road

This troubled land is all I see
These troubled visions of the gallows tree
A little bit further down the road, boys
A little bit further down the road

A little bit further down the road, boys
A little bit further down the road
(x5)

08. Carnival of Pills

It was midnight when she called
Throttled with remorse
No tears, just confessions
And she called it new home furnishing
Though I knew it was a lie
But I asked for a new rendition
No-oh-oh-oh

Alberta stood in flaw
She asked for the shoe to drop
Nervous and delightful
She never wanna see those hoods again
Who waited at the county fair
Faithless and so frightful
No-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh

Oh, as she's standing so
Easily misled she holds
Her carnival of pills
As she slowly makes her bed

His name was known by few
He waited on her porch
His Buick in the driveway
His leather jacket labelled 'None'
His tattoos known to lie;
So, just drop her on the highway
No-oh-oh-oh

She got into the car
He offered her a drink
She said she ain't got time for pity
He stopped and picked a pack of smokes
The tendrils dancing in the car
Burning from the city
No-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh

And as she sits there alone in his car
She holds a carnival of pills
That she pressed against her heart

They found her facing down
On Highway 55
Byzantine and deconstructed
And none was more the wiser
Than to not say her name;
She lies thoroughly destructive
No-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh

And as she lies there
Her smile looks amused
She holds her carnival of pills
Neglected and abused

And as she lies there
Her smile looks amused
She holds her carnival of pills, man
Neglected and abused

09. Paddywagon Turban

Aliester Crowley in the county jail
Play a quick game of pick'em up sticks
Got dead fishes in a wooden pail
Old man escaped while playin' sick
Jump full speed on a grey hound bus
Said to One-Eyed Jack "I'm ready to roll"
Said to the driver "Baby whats the fuss"
She said "Ah baby you ain't on parole"

And I ain't taking you to the promised land
Your paddy wagon turban is just more than meets the eye
And I ain't taken you to no candy land
So waltz your way right back, you ain't wanted in the sky

Chained and shackled on Berthed's mount
With a penny in his eye and a sock in his mouth
They cut off all his fingers so he couldn't count
The rest of wee days 'till he got out
Screamin armageddon in a raw hide stink
While the goons scream and coo from a pick'em up truck
It's a shotgun wedding and you got time to think
Of where you'll be heading and I wish you luck

But I tell you it ain't no promised land
Your paddy wagon turban is just more than meets the eye
And I ain't taken you to no candy land
So waltz your way right back, you ain't wanted in the sky

So went the prophet when the lights go out
The goons done stole the pennies from his eyes
He's got no urge to scream or shout
And the wind wails trouble under darkened skies
Little girl going home on a grey hound bus
Says "One Eyed Jack, ain't you got no home?"
He says "No dear, but it ain't no fuss.
there's a worse place to be than all alone."

And I tell you I think it's a promised land
Your paddy wagon turban is just more than meets the eye
And I ain't taken you to no candy land
So waltz your way right back, you ain't wanted in the sky

10. One More Smoke

Little baby in the black Cavalier
With them long drawn ears
With that long bird's neck
Legs like a chain link fence
And she's always undermined
Well at least that's what she cries
Haunted by the roses when you look into her eyes

And she likes to tight rope dance she says
Alone in her room on a piano string
And her horses may be hungry but they won't eat your hay
Her teacher is Franciscan and he doesn't know a thing
And if you don't love me just say so
I'll take all my bills from the coffee table
And I run through the streets, I run through the snow
One more smoke before I go

Just give me one more smoke before I go
One more smoke before I go, yes I know
Now, one more smoke before I go
One more smoke before I go

She never loved you
Didn't she say?
On the rainiest day
And it's whoa, whoa, whoa down the gallow's pole
And you never understood what she's tryin' to say
She talks so clear that the words get in 'er way

And if you don't love me just say so
I take all my bills from the coffee table
And I run through the streets, run through the snow
One more smoke before I go

Just give me one more smoke before I go
One more smoke before I go, yes I know
Now, one more smoke before I go
(I really need me)
One more smoke before I go
One more smoke before I go, yes I know
Now, one more smoke before I go
One more smoke before I go

11. Black River Falls

Well I've time with the fishermen, tragic, aberratic, and true
They mourn the loss and impending frost
And the fish did escape the great gaping maws
In Black River Falls

The fisherman's daughter went to the soothsayer, with me
with nothing revealed that nothing is ill, and she left, bitter, in a prison of disdain

His daughter longed for truths
Hypnotized by the blacksmith's son
Collapsed into the pew

The funeral was filled with grief
Her mother made not a sound
And one could hear her bite her fingers off
Buried alive underground.

Townfather Spaulding, stingy with the woods that were his
Had no love for the saints with their axes and canes
Not all'd go to heaven but still none would remain
In Black River Falls

With no wood for their temples, the saints cut their morals instead
Rather make him a martyr than keep him townfather
And the woods would scream murder with blood, ruby-red

And oh how they came prepared
Swinging their hatchets and loading their guns
Firing rounds in the air

And Spaulding's blood, it would not stain, the woods would not bury his woe
A bitter old man with 25 damned he sunk in the undertow

O-o-o-ooooooh (6x)

Bury me in a lily-white gown
Here in Black River Falls
(2x)

(The mothers [with their robes a-tattered???] how they'd scream, [why's it us not them that?] sleep in the river deep [????] get our names buried by Black River Falls
OR The martyrs with their arms a-tethered?, how they'd scream, '[why's it just not there?]' and sleep in the river deep [????] get our names taken by Black River Falls)
(or both? no idea)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbSWkbacyRg&lc=UgiqFe8fVSkeFXgCoAEC.7-H0Z7-TDVg9jMUp7UZDlm