The Goat Man

Traffic would get backed up
When the Goat Man came around
And the tv cameras picked him up
Some miles out of town
In his tattered, sooty overalls
And his greasy railroad cap
Going no place in particular
With a wagon full of scrap

Ches McCartney was a farmer
When the Depression hit
He had some land in Iowa
‘Till the bank foreclosed on it
So he took to cutting timber
For the WPA
‘Till a mighty tall tree fell on him
And crushed his arm one day

They found him underneath it
They thought he’d met his maker
‘Till he woke up in the funeral home
And that shocked the undertaker
The big tree left him crippled
But he swore one thing for certain
That he would never sign up for the dole
He would never be a burden

Some folks might’ve quit right then
After all that had occurred
But Ches still had his Bible
And he still had his herd
So he built a couple of wagons
And he hitched ‘em to his goats
And they all just set out walking
Down the old two lane roads

North they’d go in springtime
South when it got cold
The Goat Man kept on walking
‘Till he was 85 years old
All through the Carolinas
Virginia & DC
Georgia & Alabama
All across Tennessee

It was every year, or just about
That the Goat Man came around
Camped a couple of nights in somebody’s field
On the outskirts of a town
The people would flock to see him
Afraid there was a fire
‘Cause he made a lot of black smoke
Burning little scraps of tires

Yeah, the people would flock to see him
And then he’d have ‘em collared
Sell ‘em postcards for a quarter
3 of ‘em for a dollar
You’d laugh about it later
Down the road a couple miles
How he took you for a quarter
But he left you with a smile

The Goat Man preached the Gospel
But he changed a couple of words
He was the cussingest preacher
Anybody’d ever heard
And if you needed preaching
Come Sunday 4 o’clock
The Goat Man gave a sermon
Whether anybody was there or not

The things most people slave for
The Goat Man he rejected
It was for the good of others
All the money he collected
He didn’t have much use for it
Himself, he used to say
He walked a hundred thousand miles
Giving all of it away

The Goat Man had a bushy beard
With bits of food stuck to it
If you had some fat to chew
He’d sit with you and chew it
He didn’t bathe for all those years
You wouldn’t just not notice
You might even catch a whiff of it
Looking at some old Goat Man photos

Now the Goat Man had a favorite goat
It’s name it was Old Bill
For 30 years they walked together
Up & down the hills
Old Bill got to stop pulling
He earned his right to ride
His last days in the wagon
While the Goat Man walked beside him

The roads all got too crowded
And the cars all got too fast
The Goat Man parked his wagon
And he put his goats to pasture
It was somewhere down near Macon
In a nursing home
Where he found himself a sweetheart
They say he might’ve worn cologne