Sins of My Father

God said don't give me your tin horn prayers
Don't buy roses off the street down there
Took it all and took the dirt road home
Dreaming of Jenny with the light brown hair
Night is falling like a bloody axe
Lies and rumors and the wind at my back
Hand on the wheel and gravel on the road
Will the pawn shop sell me back what I sold?

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond

Birds cry warning from a hidden branch
Carving out a future with a gun and an axe
I'm way beyond the gavel and the laws of man
Still living in the palm of the grace of your hand
"The world's not easy," the blind man said
"Turns on nothing but money and dread"
Dogs been scratching at the door all night
Long-neck birds flying out of the moonlight

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

Smack dab in the middle of a dirty lie
The star-spangled glitter of his one good eye
Everybody knows that the game was rigged
Justice wears suspenders and a powdered wig
Darktown alleys been hiding you
Long bell tolling is your Waterloo
Oh baby, what can you do?
Does the light of God blind you or lead the way home for you?

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

God almighty for righteousness sake
Humiliation of our fallen state
Written in the book of Tubal-Cain
A long black overcoat will show no stain
Feel the heat and the burn on your back
The rip and the moan and the stretch of the rack
All my belongings in a flour sack
Will the place I come from take me back?

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

They'll hang me in the morning on a scaffold yea big
To dance upon nothing to the Tyburn jig
Treats you like a puppet when you're under its spell
Oh the heart is heaven, but the mind is hell
Jesus of Nazareth told Mike of the weeds
"I was born at this time for a reason you see
When I'm dead, I'll be dead a long time
But the wine's so pleasing and so sublime"

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

Kissed my sweetheart by the chinaball tree
Everything I done is between God and me
Only he will judge how my time was spent
Twenty-nine days of sinning and forty to repent
The horse is steady, but the horse is blind
Wicked are the branches on the tree of mankind
The roots grow upward and the branches grow down
It's much too late to throw the dice again, I've found

I'm gonna take the sins of my father
I'm gonna take the sins of my mother
I'm gonna take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond

I'm gonna wash them
I'm gonna wash them
I'm gonna wash the sins of my father
I'm gonna wash the sins of my mother
I'm gonna wash the sins of my brother
Till the water runs clear
Till the water runs clear
Till the water runs clear