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For no good reason except that I can

Song lyrics I wrote a few years ago, that for some reason came to mind this morning. Imagine this being sung in the sort of amphetamine vocals and nervous-twitch guitar style of Charlie Ryan’s “Hot Rod Lincoln”.

(Yes, I’m aware of the errors in scansion and whatnot. I never finished polishing it, nor got around to finding a musician to work it out with. Feel free to have a go if you are so moved. Legal: I release this under a Creative Commons license.)

“Coupe de Grace”
by Jay Lake

Reverend Myers was a daddy mack
Drove a black limousine Cadillac
That we all called Coupe de Grace
He paid for his pills
From a roll of hundred dollar bills
Had Je-sus printed on the face

Now I know it’s pretty odd
For a preaching man of God
To be stuffing pills in his mouth
The reverend always said
They opened up his head
Until the holy truth came out

He was cruising down the road
Tanked up on a load
Doing some praying and some thinking
When he saw the devil drive past
Satan was going real fast
In a souped-up Continental Lincoln

Reverend Myers got the shakes
Jammed on them power brakes
And swung that Caddy ass-around
He had to chase old Scratch
To see if his ride could match
The way Satan’s Lincoln covered ground

Satan saw that Cadillac a-coming
And started in to humming
Kicked on the nitrous with a big old whoop
But Myers pushed the pedal
All the way into the metal
Five hundred inches in that Graceful Coupe

Now we’re a faithful bunch in the Reverend’s flock
Word came round, it didn’t take much talk
To get us on the highway in our cars
Devil passed by at hundred miles an hour
We all prayed to the Almighty Power
And set to singing that song by Ernie Marrs

A bright shining light
Came down from on high
And set that Cadillac to glowing
The Devil was moving real fast
Flames on the Lincoln’s ass
We could hear those engines blowing

Coupe de Grace and the Devil’s hot rod
Crested Hangman’s Hill like the wrath of God
Running side by side, neck and neck
Big John Deere come the other way
Nothing left to do but scream and pray
As the Devil and the Reverend had an unholy wreck

When the smoke cleared and fire died down
The Devil was nowhere to be found
But the Reverend was dead with a holy look upon his face
The tire tracks they ended right there
That old Cadillac vanished into thin air
Now Heaven has a car called Coupe de Grace

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