Jubilee

(by 10,000 Maniacs)

Gm9 Dm Gm9 Dm Eb Bb Cm Ab
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.”

Cm Eb Cm Eb Fm x2 Cm
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 rough caresses
And the man-handling.

Black hands on white shoulders, white hands on black shoulders,
Dancing, and you know what’s more.

Cm

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.