Yeah yeah
I'm gonna tell you a story that happened to me in 1980

You know sometimes I don't know right from wrong
I, oh as my mother said, "I go off my ka-zip"
The psychiatrists they have the words for it, but

I traded my TV and my VCR
Didn't have no use for 'em anymore
For a guitar
Named that guitar Little Freaky

I was gonna change my name from Root Boy Slim
To "Guitar Get Down And Be Guitar Get Down With Little Freaky"

I decided I'd take that guitar up from Florida to Georgia in my Thunderbird
Maybe I could get a lesson and learn how to play a little bit
I wanted to marry that guitar

So I took that guitar to Macon, Georgia
Took it around to feel her in the old country places
Where my ancestors come over
In King George's time

And then I took that guitar up to Atlanta
I was in the Atlanta Hilton
Somebody had stole the keys to my Thunderbird
My car was locked up, I couldn't get my guitar

I went crazy for Little Freaky
I could hear Little Freaky callin to me
So I busted up and got in a big fight in the parking garage
And had to leave town

But as I was walking out of Atlanta Georgia
A strange thing happened to me
One of the strangest things that ever happened to me
A lot of strange things have happened to Root Boy Slim

I saw this
Streetsweeper, streetsweeper on a construction site
I walked over to it
And lordy, it had the keys in it

I didn't have no way to get back to Flagler Beach, Florida
I-I-I
I guess I was a little crazy
But I climbed up in that streetsweeper
And it had the key in it

I turned the key over
Yes it started right up
I'd never driven no construction machinery before
So I fooled with the levers and I fooled with the pedals

Then I got it going forward
Went down a big embankment, across the superhighway
Nobody gonna get in my way with that big old streetsweeper
Big yellow streetsweeper
Sweep for me, in Atlanta, Georgia

I drove from Atlanta, sweeping up a storm
I put that sweeper down
I was sweeping, yes I was
Yeah yeah, I drove out of town

But then I stopped off at the Jimmy Carter Center
Yes I was looking for work
That's where they got me

They put me in the pre-trial detention center
Say the boy crazy
Steal a streetsweeper?
Yeah I did two months

Two months in the pre-trial detention center
But people you know
I had so much fun on that streetsweeper
I think it was worth it