The Deadenin' - Legendary Shack Shakers

Breathes there a man with a soul so dead

His faith is not shaken nor stirred

Breathes there a man with a soul so dead

His faith is not shaken nor stirred

By the black swamp-blood that beats within these words?

Deep within the mighty bog oaks

Burke Holder never spoke

A word in prayer ere he harvested his trees

As the bleeding sap soaked the fallen leaves

Doubling back before his deed was done

He left scars in the bark like rings

He’d hacked their knotty hides to smithereens

He turned to face the sun

But their shadows overcome

Like the broken fingers of an up-jumped, beaten slave

Growing tighter till his heartlight choked away

Keeping God up all night, begging for mercy

No mercy was all he found

Strange angels sang while curtains fell around

Simple Stewardship you’ve failed

Blast the lumberhorns of Hell

While buzzards bray their rackety refrain

This man has made no mark, he’s left a stain.

O come all ye hunters who follow the gun

Beware of your wasteful ways!

Or soon you’ll be lyin' in the clay of the earth you hate

For those who enter his haunted woods

Lose their way, it’s understood;

Emerging in the morning to a new dawn’s early light

But a whole, damn live-long year has passed them by

Timber!

Dark Timber… in the wilds of the Deadening