Man in the Long Black Coat

Crickets are chirping, the water is high,
There's a soft cotton dress on the line hanging dry,
Her window's wide open, African trees
Bent over backwards from a hurricane breeze.
Not a word of goodbye, not even a note,
She gone with the man in the long, black coat.

Somebody seen him hanging around
At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town.
He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask
If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask.
Somebody said from the Bible he'd quote,
There was dust on the man in the long, black coat.

Preacher was a-talking, there's a sermon he gave,
He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved,
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it's you who must keep it satisfied.
It ain't easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat,
She gave her heart to the man in the long, black coat.

"There are no mistakes in life," some people say
And it's true sometime, you could see it that way,
But people don't live or die, people just float,
She went with the man in the long, black coat.

There's smoke on the water, it's a-been there since June,
Tree trunks uprooted 'neath the high crescent moon.
Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force,
Somebody is out there beating on a dead horse.
She never said nothing, there was nothing she wrote,
She gone with the man in the long, black coat.