God's Own Drunk - Live 1980

Well, like to explain to you all before

I ain't no drinkin' man

I tried it once and it got me highly irregular

And I swore I'd never do it again

I promised my brother in-law that I'd go up watch his still

While he went in to town to vote

It was right up on the mountain

Where the map said it would be

Friends let me tell you one thing

Though it wasn't no ordinary still

It stood up on that mountainside

Like a hugh golden opal

God's yeller moon shinin' on the cool clear evenin'

God's little lanterns twinklin' on and off in the heavens

Like I explain'd to you once before I ain't no drinkin' man

But temptation got the best of me

And I took a slash

That yella whiskey runnin' down my throat

Like honey dew vine water

And I took another slash

Took another'n an another'n an another'n

For you knew I'd downed one whole jug of that shit

And commenced to gettin' hot flashes

Goose pimples was runnin' up and down my body

And a feelin' came over me

Like somethin' I'd never experienced before

It was like, like I was in love

In love for the first time, with anything that moved

Animate, inanimate it didn't matter

It's like there's a great neon sign flashin' on an' off

In my brain sayin' "Jimmy Buffett there's a great day a comin'"

'Cause I was drunk

I wasn't knee crawlin', slip slidin', Reggie Youngin'

Commode huggin' drunk

I was God's own drunk and a fearless man

And that's when I first saw the bear

He was a Kodiak lookin' fella 'bout nineteen feet tall

He rambled up over the hill

Expectin' me to do one of two things

Flip or fly, I didn't do either one

It hung him up

He started sniffin' around my body tryin' to smell fear

But he ain't gonna smell no fear 'cause

I'm God's own drunk and a fearless man

It hung him up

He looked right in my eyes, and my eyes

Was a lot redder than his was

It hung him up

So I approached him, I said "Mr. Bear, I love

Every hair on your twenty-seven acre body

I know you got a lot of friends over there

On the other side of the hill

There's ole' rare bear, tall bear, Freddy bear, Kelly bear

Really bear, smelly the bear, smokey the bear

Pokey the bear

I want you to go back over there tonight

And tell them I'm feelin' right

You tell them I love each and everyone of them

Like a brother and a sister

But if they give me any trouble tonight

I'm gonna run every God damn one of them off the hill"

He took two steps backwards and didn't know what to think

Neither did I but bein' charitable and cautious

Well hell I approached him again

I said "Mr. Bear, You know in the eyes of the Lord

We're both beasts when it comes right down to it

So I want you to be my buddy, Buddy bear"

So I took ole' buddy bear by his island size paw

And I led him over to the still

He's a sniffin' around that thing cause

He's smellin' somethin' good

I gave him one of them jugs of honey dew vine water

He downed it up right

Looked like one of them damn bears in the circus

Sippin' sasparilly in the moonlight

I gave him another'n an another'n an another'n

For I knew it he downed eight of them

And commenced to doin' the bear dance

Two snips, a snort, a fly turn, and a grunt

It was so simple like the jitter bug

It plum evaded me

We worked ourselves into a tumultuous uproar

And I was awful tired and went over to the hillside

And I laid down and went to sleep

Slept for four hours and dreampt me some tremulous dreams

When I woke up, there was God's yeller moon

Shinin' on the clear cool evenin'

God's little lanterns twinklin' on and off

In the heavens

My buddy the bear was a missin'

Want to know something else friends and neighbors

So was that still