| «Well, like I explained to y’all before I ain’t no drinkin' man.
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| I tried it once, and it got me highly irregular and I swore I’d never do it
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| again. |
| But I promised my brother-in-law that I’d go up and watch his still
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| while he went into town to vote.
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| It was up there on the mountain where the map said it would be. |
| Friends let me
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| tell you one thing though, it wadn’t no ordinary still. |
| It stood up that
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| mountainside like… like a huge golden opal.
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| God’s yellar moon was a' shinin' on the cool clear evenin', God’s little
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| lanterns just a' twinklin' on and off in the heavens and, like I explained to
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| you once before, I ain’t no drinkin' man, But, temptation got the best of me,
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| and I took a slash… (wshew… woah…) That yellar whiskey runnin' down my
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| throat like honeydew vine water, and I took another slash. |
| Took another and
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| another and another. |
| 'fore you knew it I’d downed one whole jug o' that shit
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| and commenced to get hot flashes.
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| Goosepimples was runnin' up and down my body and a feelin' came over me like,
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| somethin' I’d never experienced before, It’s like, like I was in love,
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| («why don’t we have a little love Mike «)
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| In love for the first time, with anything that moved… animate,
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| in-animate it didn’t matter. |
| It’s like there’s a great neon sign flashin' on
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| and off in my brain sayin, «Jimmy Buffett there' a great day a comin'…
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| «'Cause I was drunk.
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| Now I wadn’t, uh, knee-crawlin', slip-slidin', reggy-youngin', commode-huggin'
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| drunk, I was God’s own drunk, and a fearless man; |
| And that’s when I first saw
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| the bear.
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| He was a Kodiak lookin' fella 'bout 19 feet tall he rambled up over the hill
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| 'spectin' me to do one of two things: flip or fly, I didn’t do either one.
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| It hung him up. |
| He starts sniffin' 'round my body tryin' to smell fear,
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| but he ain’t gonna smell no fear, 'cause I’m God’s own drunk and a fearless
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| man. |
| It hung him up. |
| He looked me right in my eyes and my eyes was a lot redder
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| than his was. |
| It hung him up.
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| So I approached him and I said, «Mr. |
| Bear, I love every hair on your 27 acre
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| body. |
| I know you got a lotta friends over there on the other side of the hill.
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| There’s ole' Rear Bear, Tall Bear, Freddy Bear, Kelly Jair, Relly Bear,
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| Smelly the Bear, Smokey the Bear, Pokey the Bear; |
| I want you to go back over
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| there tonight and tell 'em I’m feelin' right. |
| You tell 'em I love each and
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| every one of 'em like a brother and a sister; |
| but if they give me any trouble
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| tonight, I’m gonna run every Goddamned one of 'em off the hill.»
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| He took two steps backwards and didn’t know what to think. |
| Neither did I, but,
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| being charitable and cautious, well hell, I approached him again. |
| I said, «Mr.
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| Bear, you know in the eyes of the Lord, we’re both beasts when it comes right
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| down to it. |
| So I want you to be my buddy, 'Buddy Bear.'"So I took ole' Buddy
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| Bear by his island sized paw and I led him over to the still. |
| Now he’s a'
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| sniffin' around that thing 'cause he’s smellin' somethin' good. |
| I gave him one
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| of them jugs of honeydew vine water, he downed it upright, (looked like one of
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| them damn bears in the circus sippin' sasparilly in the moonlight.
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| ) I gave him another and another and another 'fore I knew it, he’d downed eight
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| of 'em and commenced to do the «bear dance."Two sniffs, a snort, a fly,
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| a turn and a grunt; |
| and it was so simple like the jitterbug it plumb evaded me.
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| And we worked ourselves into a tumultuous uproar and I’s awful tired,
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| went over to the hillside, and I laid down, went to sleep, slept for four
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| hours, and dreamt me some tremulous dreams And when I woke up, Oh,
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| there was God’s yellar moon a' shinin' on the clear cool evenin'.
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| And God’s little lanterns just a' twinklin' on and off in the heavens,
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| And my buddy the bear was a' missin'… yeah, you want to know somethin' else
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| friends and neighbors, so was that still.
|
| -- Spoken:
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| «That's a take. |
| Wait, could uh… you missed it?» |