God Given Tongue

[Spoken: Bryan Lewis Saunders]
One time I was staying at this homeless shelter—Hope Haven in Kingsport, Tennessee—and the rule was if you didn't go to Church on Sunday you couldn't sleep there that night. And, uh, me and my friend, Paul David Miller, we overslept and didn't go to church, and so we were, like, trying to get dibs on this abandoned car out back so we could have a place to sleep
But then this guy showed up at the homeless shelter and he was wearing like regular clothes, looked like a regular guy, and um, he was like, "Hey! anyone wanna go to the mall? I'll buy you lunch," something like that. And we were like sure, Paul—I didn't ever say anything but Paul David Miller was like "yeah, yeah, come on."
And so then, um, we went to the mall, and the whole time we were hanging out with this guy he was like uh, "Do you like Rock and Roll? There's Rock and Roll at my church. Do you like girls? There's a lotta girls at my church. Y'all need a job? There's people that can get you a job at my Church," He even said, "Do you need a car? There's people that have cheap cars at my church"

[Verse 1: Daveed Diggs]
Jesus is walking, stigmata infected
The beast in the pocket, go 'head and inject it
Jericho in the grip, with merlot on the lip
Body and Blood, testament taking a trip
Taking your dollars, call it collection
Calling God on collect from a site of correction
Pharmaceutical using, isn't the spirit delicious
In the clutches of circumstance still remain an invictus

[Spoken: Bryan Lewis Saunders]
And uh, this girl was on stage. And, like, when you get ready to puke, uh, your cheeks kinda puff up; you can tell when someone's getting ready to vomit. And, so then she started puffing up her cheeks a whole bunch and then she jumped off the stage and started running up the aisle. And the people—the guy and Paul David Miller, were behind me and I said "Look out! This girl's get- about ready to get sick!" like that
And then she busted through the door and into the girls' room and you could hear her getting sick in there and I said to the guy that brought us there, I said "Aren't you gonna send someone in there after her to see if she's okay?" and he said, "Nah, she's just spitting out demons, we do that here."

[Verse 2: Daveed Diggs]
Devil under the tongue, he been eating the wafers
Getting drunk off the wine, his design never wavers
Are you feeling the heating? Check the vent in the ceiling
That shit is obviously the fire that the preacher is speaking
Tongue's parched, put quill on the parchment
Stop looking for arks
The hole where the heart went is ripping apart
The little apartment
Of the bleeding heat and frequenting the park bench

[Spoken: Bryan Lewis Saunders]
And they had my arms held out like a, like a spread eagle or something in the air, and this one guy started going, "a-hmmunumunumunumunumunumunumunumunumuna! hmmunumunumunumunumunumunumunumma!" like that
And then this big huge—a big huge guy comes up, grabs me around the waist like he wants to dance or something and then he starts pushing on my head really hard and saying "You best start speaking in that God-given tongue, boy! You best start speaking in that God-given tongue, boy!"

[Verse 3: Daveed Diggs and (Bryan Lewis Saunders)]
Speak the light of the Lord, it should sound like a curse
How could the tongue of the chosen one translate in your verse
Make the melody foreign, octaves jumping the levels
(But then they thought I was the devil)
Well shit maybe you are, has your brain been idle?
Do you study the details when you're reading your bible?
Cause you know that's where he lives so don't be reading to close
Just keep looking for God in the spiral and smoke

[Spoken: Bryan Lewis Saunders]
And then they pushed me all the way up these stairs and into a closet, and it was totally dark in this closet, and then all of a sudden-like, after like, two minutes or something the door opens up and I get hit in the chest with a soaking wet orange, bright orange, jail jumpsuit. And a cop says "Get your bottoms off! Get your bottoms off!" Like that, and so I just got my bottoms off. I was, like, scared to death, I was in this closet of this crazy church. And so then, uh, they opened up the door and they said "Come on, Come on!" like this
And then uh, I looked and here was a pool upstairs with fake rocks and fake plants and then, uh, the guy who was in the water and put his leg up on a rock and was like "come on... come on..." like that. And then I went down in the pool and he said to hold- how to hold my arms and he said "When I dunk you under this water, you're gonna feel really cold, but when I pull you up out of this water, you best be speaking in that God-given tongue, boy."

[Verse 4: Daveed Diggs]
Say it, say it, say it till you feel it
Feel like dancing on the ceiling
Feel like sitting on a million
Feel like everything equating to success is really nothing more
Than compensating for not being blessed
Now strip, see the pole, climb it like stairs to heaven
But the stars are higher than you could possibly be getting
And sever all the begetting unless you be getting married
Just play with your genitalia for Jesus until you're ready

[Spoken: Bryan Lewis Saunders]
This little bitty guy with glasses all of a sudden jumps out of one of these rooms and gets in front of me, and I kept trying to, like, walk around him but he kept stepping in front of me. He's like, "I know, I know you've had a long night, I just need to ask you a few questions before you leave, I know its been a very eventful night but just come on in this room and answer a few questions." And so I said "okay," I'm gonna go in this room, I'm gonna answer his questions and then I'm gonna walk straight out of this room and walk straight out of this church and sleep at the homeless shelter
And so then I go in the room, He never even turned the light on, and he had a clipboard and it had different thing- questions were on it and he said, he looked at me and he said uh, "Holy Spirit," and then he put a little checkmark, and then he said "Spoke in tongues," and checked like this, and he said "baptized" and he checked and he just went down this list of all these things they did to me against my will and I never said anything
And then he says, "well what we do is we send people to your house," uh, I guess he didn't know we were at the homeless shelter, he said, "we send two people to your house and then we teach you the bible." And I said, "well I've read- I've read the bible, three times, Old Testament and New, front and- to back in prison, I know the bible, that's-I don't need anyone coming to my house."

[Verse 5: Daveed Diggs]
Three things first, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Holy Water, hallelujah, hold your daughter close
Hold up the bible in Fallujah, light it, holy smoke
Drop them bombs on the Qu'ran before they drop them first
And if you drop it like its hot
You better open up your soul to Jesus Christ ready or not
Let us carry the cross for you, take a load off
Come in the water and started washing off all the dross

[Spoken: Bryan Lewis Saunders]
They would come to the homeless shelter right away to try to get us and bring us back to it-um, every service, I don't know how many they had a week, it-it was a lot. And so I just said, "well I'm gonna get a job, I gotta get a job and I gotta move out of this homeless shelter to get these cult freak people after me away from me."
And so I got a job at McDonalds and rented a room in this biker house, and they were just constantly making meth and fighting each other for fun and knocking each other's teeth out and looking like monsters and stuff. And then one day I was at work, and they said two guys came looking for me. And they knew they were from that church, and so then one of the bikers, Chris, when they came in he said, "Yeah, Bryan lives here, he's up- he live upstairs, he's up there," and so he let them go upstairs but he had a sawed off ten-gauge shotgun, and then he followed them up the stairs, and once they knocked and I didn't answer, he pulled out the shotgun, and he said "I've got 666 tatooed on the head of my dick, y'all wanna suck it?" like that, and then he pointed- I'm, I'm sure he pointed it at them because he was crazy like that, and then they never came back for me again