There's a high wind blowin, & the stars are shining bright,

Oh what a night, this is gonna be--

     I think I'll let the world sleep without me.

I got one eye open, one eye closed.

& my thin body's trembling beneath the bedclothes,

My hearts beatin' against the roof of my mouth

     --It's almost time to get out of this house.



I got one hand on the radio, one hand on the wheel,

I got my right foot on the floorboard,--

     & I'm preparing to kill or be killed.



There's a high wind blowin', & the stars are shining bright.

& the rain upon the tarmac,

     --helps me sail through the traffic lights,

I'm heading down to the dock of the bay,

     --to feel the power of the waves,

I'm gonna move up close to that wind,

& wrestle with the thoughts solitude always brings.



Y'see I'm stuck between hell & the deep blue sea,

& I know that water's sucked under better man than me,

I was just another western guy,

     --with desires that couldn't be satisfied,

So one day, I asked the angels for inspiration,

     --but the devil bought me a drink,

& he's been buying them ever since,

he's had the liquor on my tongue

     --feel like the sea upon the sand,

he's had me signing confessions

     --from this shaking hand,

he's had me struggling to hang onto hope--

Like a drunken sailor in a tugboat

with a bottle of vodka in my overcoat,

& my dog eared bible lost--overboard



Y'see he tricked me into temptation,

So I've tricked him into this confrontation,

I never said I was the man I appeared to be

not the flesh wrapped around the bones of necessity.

Or the soul on fire--scribbling thoughts for posterity.



I'm gonna have little lucifer, runnin' off to purgatory,

     --with his tail between his legs,

I'm gonna teach him a lesson

     --he ain't ever gonna forget.

All the vultures & crows are fixin up some tombstones

but they won't be chewing the meat off my bones.



There's a high wind blowin' & the stars are shining bright.

Me & him are gonna have a little knife fight,

     --in the bowels of the big city skyline,

Oh this feelin' inside runs dark & deep

     --Tonight my hearts not thumping

     --A Mercy Beat





I was just another western guy,

with desires that couldn't be--satisfied.