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If you beat up, you butcher, and you bleed a man |
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You bang up and badger and blood-let a man |
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And then I come along |
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On the feet of man |
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And halfway laugh and cry |
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About the meat of man |
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And I do what I can |
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To bale string and tie |
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Some ballad truths |
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Up and cured out |
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For the feed of man |
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Folks try to tell me |
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That it's on God's orders |
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That you bleed your man |
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It's on God's good word that you |
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Bleed your man |
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On God's plan print |
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That you dead a man |
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Or spit and curse and whip your man |
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I say I'll help you squeeze and fix yourself up a |
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A new kind of God of some kind |
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One that tells you |
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Fertilize and multiply |
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One that tells you |
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Outsow and outblow |
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Outplant and outgrow |
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Outdo, and outrun, and outclimb, and outspread |
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Every other tree and bush |
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And brushy fruits and flower petals |
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Outfruit them all |
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For the feed of man |
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Outstalk and outhunt and outthink |
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For God's own sweet sake, outthink! Outthink! |
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Outthink the fruits |
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Outgrow these animal kinds and shapes of man |
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It you miss and go down |
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Your dust will turn up on that long hot job |
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Once more again |
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To help in the feeding and the seed of man |
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And not in the bleeding and the end of man |
