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The Ballad of Lena Baker

from Beatrice & The Nine Muses by Riverman

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lyrics

Ernest Knight, you're a devil!
A smooth talking fellow
Distinguished even nursing your new wound...
And you used your wealth, to take advantage of the hired help
But you were consumed....

And Lena you're no angel
You could drink me beneath the table,
Unbecoming for a mother of forty-three...
But that wouldn't do, to prove a streak of malice in you,
So what's your plea?

Ernest Knight, I'd curse the sight of you
For doing the things that you do
You swagger, it's your way, with a pistol and a temper barely kept at bay...
You took her in the mill, you turned the lock and you sprang for the kill,
Was it a thrill? Or a surprise?
When you caught that bullet between the eyes?
A grim distinction in keeping with the times....
And how time flies!

Judge Worrill what's the hurry?
An all-white, all male jury?
And a case that was tried in a single day...?
Represented by her peers,
She’d have served the better half of 20 years...
Why’d she have to pay...
In that good old fashioned way?!

And so that night Cuthbert shuttered
At the words that Lena uttered,
She was at peace with the God that gave her life...
And the lights of Cuthbert flickered
And the citizens all snickered, "Tonight that Lena Baker fries!"
They strapped her to the chair, a surge went up and out her every hair
At her demise...
It took them three tries!

Six decades of denial
The Board of Pardons picked up the file
And decided they'd issue a reprieve...
Which Lena can't enjoy
Like any scapegoat or a whipping boy...
What the hell?!
But who can tell, Lena Baker this time....

credits

from Beatrice & The Nine Muses, released December 1, 2014
Written, performed, and produced by Riverman

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about

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Riverman Orlando, Florida

Steve Hedrick is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He lives in Orlando, Fl with his wife and two children. He is currently working on new material and will post it when it's finished.

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