Now, George was a good straight boy to begin with
But there was bad blood in him someway
And he got into the magic bullets
That lead straight to the Devil’s work
Just like marijuana leads to heroin
You think you can take them bullets and leave ‘em, do you?
Just save a few for your bad days, well...
Well, we all have those bad days when we can’t hit for shit
And the more of them magics you use
The more bad days you have without them
So it comes down to finally all your days being bad without the bullets
It’s magics or nothing
Time to stop chippying around and kidding yourself
Kid, you’re hooked, heavy as lead
And that’s where old George found himself
Out there at the crossroads, molding the Devil’s bullets
Now a man figures it’s his bullets, so it’ll take what he wants
But it don’t always work out that way
You see, some bullets are special for a single target
A certain stag or a certain person
And no matter where you aim, that’s where the bullet’ll end up
And in the moment of aiming, the gun turns into a dowser’s wand
And points where the bullet wants to go
George Schmid was moving in a series of convulsive spasms
Like someone in an epileptic fit
With his face contorted and his eyes wild like a lassoed horse
Bracing his legs, but something kept pulling him on
Now he is picking up the skulls and making the circle
I guess old George didn’t rightly know what he was getting himself into
The fit was on him and it carried him right to the crossroads
Words by William Burroughs
Music by Tom Waits
©1990, 1993 Jalma Music Inc. / Nova Lark Music (ASCAP)
Produced by Tom Waits
Recorded by Gerd Bessler at Music Factory, Hamburg, Germany 1990
Mixed by Biff Dawes at Sunset Sound Factory, Hollywood, CA
2nd engineer: Mike Kloster
Tom Waits: Vocals, guitar and chamberlin
Greg Cohen: Bass
Gerd Bessler: Viola
Track 14 on the album ‘The Black Rider’ 1993
Time: 2.42
It’s track 5 on the bootleg ‘Black Rider Outtakes’, where it’s called ‘George Schmid’. It’s the same take but without the beautiful chamberlin, and without that boost on Tom’s vocals (a bit of echo, I think). But that version has an intro that’s been inexplicably edited out in the final cut. It’s more of the falsetto vocals and viola that also ends the song
