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
Dreamin' of Jenny with the light brown hair

Night is fallin' like a bloody axe
Lies and rumours and the wind at my back
Hand on the wheel, 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 warnin' from a hidden branch
Carvin' out a future with a gun and an axe
I'm way beyond the gavel and the laws of man
Still livin' in the palm on the grace of your hand
World's not easy the blind man said
Turns on nothin' but money and dread
Dog's been scratchin' at the door all night
Long neck birds flyin' 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
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 been hidin' you
Long bell tollin' 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
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
Writ' me the book of tubold Cain
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


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

Hang me in the mornin' on a scaffold yea big
To dance upon nothin' to the tyborn jig
Treats you like a puppet when your under his spell
Oh, the heart is Heaven
But the mind is Hell

Jesus of Nazareth told Mike of the weeds
Is born at this time for a reason you see
When i'm dead i'll be dead a long time
The wine's so pleasin' 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 chinaball tree
Everything I done is between God and me
Only He will judge how my time was spent
Twenty - nine days of sinnin'
And forty to repent

The horse is steady but the horse is blind
Wicked are the branches on the tree of mankind
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
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
Wash the sins of my brother
'Til the water runs clear
'Til the water runs clear
'Til the water runs clear