Jubilee lyrics

Song information

Artist: 10000 Maniacs
Album: Blind Man's Zoo

Lyrics

[ music: natalie merchant/words: natalie merchant ]

[ musical arrangement: jason osborn/first violin: krista bennion feeney/second violin: mitsuru tsubota/viola: louise schulman/cello: myron lutzke/bassoon: dennis godburn/harpsicord: robert wolinsky (all belonging to the sait luke's chamber orchestra)/classical guitar: scott kuney/double bass: frank luther (all directed by jason osborn) ]

He fills the flower vases, trims the candle bases, takes small change from the poor box
Tyler has the key
He takes nail and hammer to tack up the banner of felt scraps glued together reading
"Jesus lives in me."
Alone in the night he mocks the words of the preacher: "god is feeling your every pain."
Repair the christmas stable, restore the plaster angel
Her lips begin to crumble and her robes begin to peel
For bible study in the church basement, hear children gospel citing, matthew 17:15
Alone in the night he mocks the arms of the preacher raised to the ceiling
"Tell god your pain."

To him the world's defiled
In lot he sees a likeness there;
He swears this sodom will burn down
Near sacred blood there's a dance hall where tyler glen saw a black girl and a white boy kissing shamelessly
Black hands on white shoulders, white hands on black shoulders, dancing, and you know what's more
He's god's mad disciple, a righteous title, for the word he heard he so misunderstood
Though simple minded, a crippled man, to know this man is to fear this man, to shake when he comes
Wasn't it god that let puritans in salem do what they did to the unfaithful?

Boys at the jubilee slowly sink into brown bag whiskey drinking and reeling on their feet
Girls at the jubilee in low-cut dresses yield to the caresses and the man-handling
Black hands on white shoulders, white hands on black shoulders, dancing, and you know what's more

Through the tall blades of grass he heads for the jubilee with a bucket in his right hand full of rags soaked in gasoline
He lifts the shingles in the dark and slips the rags there underneath
He strikes a matchstick on the box side and watches the rags ignite
He climbs the bell tower of the sacred blood to watch the flames rising higher toward the trees
Sirens wailing now toward the scene

-- matthew 17:15 --
-- lord have mercy onmy son
-- for he is a lunatick, and
-- sore vexed: for oftimes he
-- falleth into the fire and
-- oftimes into the wate