I’d run barefooted all day long
Climbin’ trees, free as a song
One day I happened to catch myself a squirrel.
Mississippi Squirrel Revival
by
Ray Stevens
Well, when I was a kid I’d take a
trip
Every summer, down to Mississip’
To visit my Granny and her antebellum world.
I’d run barefooted all day long
Climbin’ trees, free as a song
One day I happened to catch myself a squirrel.
Well, I stuffed
him down in an old shoe box,
And punched a couple holes in the top.
When Sunday came, I snuck him into church.
I was sittin’ way back in the very last pew,
Showin’ him to my good buddy Hugh,
When that squirrel got loose and went totally berserk!
Well, what
happened next is hard to tell;
Some thought it was Heaven, others thought it was Hell,
But the fact that somethin’ was among us was plain to see!
As the choir sang I Surrender All,
The squirrel run up Harv Newman’s coveralls;
And
Harv leaped to his feet and said, “Somethin’s got ahold on me! Yow!”
The day
the squirrel went berserk
In the First Self-Righteous Church
In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula!
It was a fight for survival
That broke out in revival
They were jumpin’ pews and shoutin’ “Hallelujah!”
Well, Harv
hit the aisles dancin’ and screamin’,
Some thought he had religion, others thought he had a demon,
And Harv thought he had a Weed Eater loose in his Fruit of the Looms!
He fell to his knees to plead and beg,
And the squirrel ran out of his britches’ leg
Unobserved, to the other side of the room,
All the
way down to the Amen Pew,
Where sat sister Bertha Better-Than-You,
Who’d been watching all the commotion with sadistic glee,
But shoot, you shoulda seen the look in her eyes
When that squirrel jumped her garters and crossed her thighs
And she jumped to her feet and said, “Lord, have mercy on me!”
As the
squirrel made laps inside her dress,
She began to cry and then to confess
To sins that would make a sailor blush with shame!
She told of gossip and church dissension,
But the thing that got the most attention
Was when she talked about her love life, and then she started naming names!
The day
the squirrel went berserk
In the First Self-Righteous Church
In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula!
It was a fight for survival
That broke out in revival
They were jumpin’ pews and shoutin’ “Hallelujah!”
Well,
seven deacons and the Pastor got saved,
And twenty five thousand dollars got raised,
And fifty volunteered for missions in the Congo on the spot!
And even without an invitation
There were at least five hundred rededications,
And we all got rebaptized, whether we needed it or not!
Now you’ve
heard the Bible story, I guess,
How He parted the waters for Moses to pass;
O, the miracles God has wrought in this old world.
But the one I’ll remember ’til my dying day
Is how He put that church back on the narrow way
With a half-crazed Mississippi squirrel!
The day
the squirrel went berserk
In the First Self-Righteous Church
In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula!
It was a fight for survival
That broke out in revival
They were jumpin’ pews and shoutin’ “Hallelujah!”
"Will you not revive us again, that your people may
rejoice in you?"
Psalm 85:6
(And send us a squirrel if we need it!)
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