Saul Keller Lyrics

Saul Keller was the first to drown in the flood of '93 he lived with his dogs down in Grafton cut stone in Alton quarry he grew up in Jessamine Kentucky, played Sweet saro when he was ten but he bet his mama's harmony in a dice throw on a pint of bourbon his father feared God and he feared the mines, drove the tipples in coal dust clouds said, "The Master's hand is hard sometimes but who else is gonna wipe your brow?" get to know Jesus the women cried, by the river on baptism day Saul looked the Lord right in the eye put on his shoes and turned away sun and moon, circles in the sky December and June, river rising high he married a girl from Nachez Trace, twenty years ago, maybe stole a horse to buy her lace and a knife of rosewood and steel they followed the big river backwards for Lily's cousin's in Saginaw Saul met some men in a trainyard lost more than he knew on a hand of lowball by the river they built life and home from a boathouse, shed and bricks swore he'd never work coal or stone but in Alton, the stone's all there is firs spring Lily died in childbirth, on the cool kitchen floor doctor come to tell Saul he was pitchin' a knife at the shed door sun and moon, circles in the sky December and June, river rising high now he picks up hitchers on the river line just for someone to talk to shares his whiskey and he shares his time trying to put an end to his dues the Mississippi rises with the spring thaw, round that house where his child wasn't born he'd watch her come and go with fall, mark the water lines every morn when the levee broke he heard her, like the wind through the mines in his dreams saw it coming like a tide curl of an ocean he'd never seen