DROWN THE DEVIL

One day outta nowhere
Little brother got struck
Something made him Dumb
By ‘Dumb’ I mean he wouldn’t talk

We took him to the healer woman
Then we took him to the City Doc
But he wouldn’t speak to anyone
He just refused to talk

“The Devil has crawled inside him”
Grandma said from her rock’n chair
“Gotta get the Reverend Billy Jim”
“He’ll drive the Devil out of there”

“I’ll whoop that devil out of him”
Pa got really mad and said
But an ass whoop’n wouldn’t help
What was in little brother’s head

So they called for Reverend Billy Jim
To excise the devil out of little brother
Sunday we all gathered at the river
To witness the spirit and the water

The Reverend Billy Jim took little brother
Into that swift ice cold Mountain river
Then he began dunking him beneath the water
Each time he’d yell a bellowing holler

“Alleluia!  Do you believe?  Alleluia!  Do you believe?”
Every time he push little brother beneath
He held him down little bit longer,
And he'd holler, a little bit louder
“Alleluia!  Do you believe?  Alleluia!  Do you believe?”

A dozen times, little brother went under
“Alleluia!  Do you believe?  Alleluia!  Do you believe?”
Till little brother was a choking and a gaging
I was certain it would all end, tragically

Finally, Reverend Billy Jim took a pause
To let little brother breathe
Then looking him in the eye
The good Billy Jim made one last plea
“Little Brother, Do You Believe?”

Little brother gaged and coughed
And then screamed in a spray of spit
"I BELIEVE!...I BELIEVE!"
“I believe you’re trying to drown me”
“You dirty no good Son-Of-a-Bitch!”

So that’s the day little brother
Began to talk once again
And would you believe
He grow’d up to be a preacher man?

But sometimes I wish old Satan
Would send back Beelzebub
And take back possession of little brother
So that pious windbag would shut the Hell-Up!