Before I kick the bucket, give me a moment to explain.

Go on, child, git yerself a seat and listen.

Down on the bayou, you know the way,

on an elbow of land and a bend,

past Creole music and that ol’ carport,

sits a stump, with a rusty bucket ‘longside.

 

That’s where I met the Devil.

Tall skinny man, wit’ a black beard thicker’n oil,

an’ a voice smoother’n silk, soft as butter,

which when I remember sends a tremor all the way down,

an’ that smell, like suga and cinnamon sweet and spice.

Beet red and summer heat all rolled in one.

 

An though my eyes are old, my ears are not,

an’ I can hear the golden fiddle still.

They say I beat the Devil at his own game,

but we both known better.

Pride cometh befo’ the fall, and he had fallen

before I tricked him in.