Text: Tom Waits. 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
Dog's been scratching at the door all night
Long neck birds flying out of the moon light

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

Dark town alley's 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
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
Take the sins of my mother
And take the sins of my brother
Down to the pond
Down to the pond

God all mighty for righteousness sake
Humiliation of our fallen state
Written in the book of too bold Cain
A long black overcoat will show no stain

Feel the heat and the burn on your back
The rip and the moan 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
Take the sins of my mother
And 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 Tyborn Jig
Treats you like a puppet when you're under his spell
Oh the heart is heaven but the mind is hell

Jesus of Nazareth told Mike of the weeds
I's 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
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 China ball tree
Everything I done is between god and me
Only he will judge how my time was spent
29 days of sinning and 40 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
Take the sins of my mother
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
Wash the sins of my brother
Till the water runs clear
Till the water runs clear
Till the water runs clear