Mississippi River Runnin' Backwards - Tom Russell

Old man river, that old man river he just keeps rolling along

Mississippi river runnin' backwards, earthquake shook the land, it happened

down here in 1912 it’s happening here again

Feast and famine ya’all fire and flood, abominations you understand,

don’t need no old testament profit to tell me we ain’t living in the promise

land

«Everybody sing blow Gabriel blow, yeah blow that ragtime jazz, judgment day

coming down here y’all in the land of the razzmatazz.»

I saw carpet sweepers, microwave ovens, I saw busted down television screens

Empty t.v.

Evangelist cats with their hair all slicked up with brill cream

Now the gospel news truly real bad news no need to invent all the doom and

gloom, it’s a one legged race to the liquor store, it’s a hop skip and jump

into the doom

«Everybody sing blow Gabriel blow, yeah blow that ragtime jazz, judgment day

coming down here y’all in the land of the razzmatazz.»

Steamboat whistle blowing under water, everything is backwards and upside down,

baby Moses in the bulrushes paddling sidways to higher ground

Old ladies gambling inside river boat casinos, whirlpools swallowing em down

insurance executives and fuller brush salesmen bushwhacked trying to leave town

But their lifeboats went backwards up the mississippi river to the ancient

Missouri side up thru Iowa, Minnesota into the hands of a righteous God

«Everybody sing blow Gabriel blow, yeah blow that ragtime jazz, judgment day

coming down here y’all in the land of the razzmatazz.»