Death Was The Driver

(album: Typhoon - 2005)

The scrape of boots on a gravel road
Dust and ashes, dancing at my feet
As I hitchhike through the desert
Through the bowels of the sunburnt country

Where it's littered with skeletons
Of bodies and cars that collapsed
And through the graveyard rides old man death
In his black cadillac

He rolls down the window on the driver side
And I first see his darked marked hand
And he grins at me with yellow teeth and he gestures with a half cigarette

He says "hop in and I'll get you where you're going"
And I ask "where is that?"
He flicks the filter, says "Hell if I know,
But I'll get you there fast
To a place where they lay down your life
If my son you are sure it's your time"

Riding shotgun in his car with
Filled with words that never said
Silently upon the road we ride into the fiery sunset
I ask him to where we're going again to which he replies
"To the world's end, to the world's end"
And I asked him "what happens next?" and he said

"You're all sitting bravely upon your crosses
Just waiting for the water to rise
With fingernails you're clinging to
The hope that faith will float when you will die

And if it does, well I don't know
You'll only have to wait for tonight, for tonight
Because I'll be out of a job after tonight

For my son, the time has come, it all comes down
At midnight the dying lights all go out
All go out
All go out

And at this point my mind was made
I kindly asked for him to stop
He just grinned his yellow grin, he said
He'd see me come twelve o'clock

I was back where I had started
And old man death was riding off, was driving off
The static of his radio was trailing off