"Thrown into a dungeon, Bread and water was my portion, Faith - my only weapon, To rest the devil's legion. The speak-hole would slide open, A viper's voice would pleade, A voice think with innuendo, Syphillis and greed."

"O no don't go O no O slow down Joe! The righteous path is straight as an arrow, Take a walk and you'll find it's too narrow, Too narrow for the likes of me."

"Who's that yonder all in flames? Draggin' behind him a sack of chains Who's that yonder all in flames? Up jumped the Devil and staked his claim"

"O poor heart, I was doomed from the start, Doomed to play the villian's part, I was the baddest Johnny in the apple cart, My blood was blacker than the chambers of a dead nun's heart."

"My oh My,what a wretched Life. I was born on the day that my poor mama died. I was cut from Her belly with a stanley knife. My daddy did a jig with the drunk midwife"

"And the mercy seat is melting, And I think my blood is boiling, And in a way I'm spoiling, All the fun with all this truth and consequence. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, And anyway I told the truth, And I'm not afraid to die."

"In heaven His throne is made of gold, Where the ark of His testament is stowed, A throne from which I'm told all history does unfold, Down here it's made of wood and wire, And my body is on fire, And God is never far away."

"I hear stories from the chamber, How Christ was born into a manger, And like some ragged stranger died up on the cross, And might I say it seems to fitting in its way, He was a carpenter by trade, Or at least that's what I'm told."

"And as the company passed from the valley, into a higher ground, The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow, and on the mound, Until nothing was left, nothing at all except the body of Sorrow, That rose in time, to float upon the surface of the eaten soil."

"The carny had a horse, all skin and bone, A bow-backed nag, that he named "Sorrow", Now it is buried in a shallow grave, In the then parched meadow."

"A thousand Marys lured me, To feathered beds and fields of glover, Bird with crooked wing cast, Its wicked shadow over, A bauble moon did mock, And trinket stars did smile, Your funeral, my trial."

"Numbin' the runt of reputation they call rat frame, Top-E as a tourniquet, A low tune whistles across his grave, Forever the slave of his Six Strings."

"Here comes the Judgement train! Git on board!"

"Blind Lemon Jefferson is a-comin', Tap tap tappin', with his cane."

"O You kings of halls and ends of halls, You will die within these walls, And I'll go, all down the row, Knockin' on Joe."

"O Warden, I surender to you, Your fists cain't hurt me anymore, You know, these hands will never wash, These dirty Death Row floors."

"I am the black crow king, Keeper of the forgotten corn, The King!"

"I just made a simple gesture, They jumped up and nailed it to my shadow, My gesture was a hooker, You know, my shadow's made of timber."

"Tupelo-o-o! Hey, Tupelo! You will reap just what you sow."

"Well saturday gives what sunday steals, And a child is born on his brother's heels, Come sunday morn the first-born is dead, In a shoebox tied with a ribbon of red."

"In a clap-board shack with a roof of tin, Where the rain came down and leaked within, A young mother frozen on a concrete floor, With a bottle and a box and a cradle of straw."

"Looka yonder! Looka yonder! A big black cloud come!"

"Ah've cried one thousand tears, it's true."

"Death favours those that favour death."

"From the words and the thickets, Come the ghosts of his victims, 'We love you!' 'Ah love you!' This will not hurt a bit."

"Here is the hammer, that build the scaffold, and built the box..."

"When ya done ransackin' his room, Grabbin' any-damn-thing that shines, Throw the scraps down on the street, Like all his books and his notes. All his books and his notes and all the junk that he wrote, The whole fucken lot goes right up in smoke."

"O you recall the song ya used to sing-a-long, Shifting the river-trade on that ol' steamer, Life is but a dream!"

"The mo-o-o-on, its huge cycloptic eye, Watches the city streets contract, twist and cripple and crack."

"Straight in the arms of the city goes Huck, Down the beckonin' streets of op-po-tunity, Whistling his favorite river-song... And a bad-blind nigger at the piano puts a sinister blooo lilt into that sing-a-long, Huck senses something's wrong!"

"'O come to me!, O come to me!' is what the dirty city say to Huck."

"Ah read her diary on her sheets, Scrutinizin' every lil' piece of dirt, Tore out a page'n'stufft it inside my shirt. Fled outa the window, And shinning it down the vine, Outa her night-mare, and back into mine."

"O ah hear her walkin', Walkin' barefoot 'cross the floor-boards, All thru this lonesome night, And ah hear her crying too. Hot-tears come splashin' down, Leaking thru the cracks, Down upon my face, ah catch'em in my mouth!"

"O the same God that abandon'd her, Has in turn abandon'd me, Deep in the Desert of Despair, I wait at the Well of Misery."

"Put ya shoulder to the handle, if ya dare, and hoist that bucket hither, Crank'n'hoist'n'hoist'n'crank, till ya muscles waste'n'wither."

"The actualising of God through the medium of the love song remains my prime motivation as an artist."

"My responsibility as an artist is to turn up at the page or the piano or the microphone. The rest is up to God."

"God has matured. He is not the impulsive, bowelless being of the Testaments - the vehement glorymonger, with His bag of cheap carny tricks and his booming voice - the fiery huckster with his burning bushes and his wonder wands. Nowadays God knows what He wants and He knows who He wants."

"Do I personally believe in a personal God? No."

"Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite, it is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self. This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value; it is the breathless confrontation with one’s vulnerability, one’s perilousness, one’s smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering."

"Do you want to know how to write a song? Song-writing is about counterpoint. Counterpoint is the key. Putting two disparate images beside each other and seeing which way the sparks fly. Like letting a small child in the same room as, I don't know, a Mongolian psychopath or something, and just sitting back and seeing what happens. Then you send in a clown, say, on a tricycle, and again, you wait, and you watch ... And if that doesn't do it... you shoot the clown."

"The song is heroic because the song confronts death. The song is immortal and bravely stares down our own extinction. The song emerges from the spirit world with a true message: Some day I will tell you how to slay the dragon."

"Tallys up his loneliness, notch by notch, For the sea offers nuthin' to hold or touch."

"The Captain's fore-arm like buncht-up rope, With Anita wrigglin' free onto skull n' dagger, And a portrait of Christ, nailed to an anchor, Etched into the upper..."

"My baby is alright, She doesn't mind a bit of dirt, She says 'Horror vampire bat bite, sex vampire, how I wish those bats would bite', Woooooah! Bite! Bite! Release the bats!"

"I am the king! I am the king! I am the king! One dead marine through the hatch, Scratch and scrape this heavenly body, Every inch of winning skin, Honey Honey Honey Honey Honey, come and kiss me-e-e-e-e-e!"

"Pilgrim gets 1 hacked daughter, And all we get are 40 hack reporters, Uptown 100 skirts are bleeding, And Mr. Evangilist says She's hit, ev'ry little bit."

"I tried to kill it in my bed, I gagged it with a pillow, But awoke the nuns inside my head."

"Hit it! With words like Blood, Soldier and Mother..."

"Oh! Yer! What a wonderful life! Fats Domino on the radio!"