It’s your second chance for the very last time

The Devil's Quicksand

The cartoonish admonitory that is the subject of today’s post is a tribute, in its way, to the pre-Just Say No anti-drug movies I watched on rickety, flickering 16 mm projectors as a none-too wayward youth. (I was, likely as not, the guy tasked to setting up and monitoring the projector.)

Thanks to the goofy, over-the-top antics of a lost generation of young educational film actors (“And now from his triumphant role in ‘Your Hygiene and You’ comes…”) some very unfunny drugs actually gained a sort of anything-for-a-laugh charisma.

Projector geek I may have been but I got hip and cynical later and had many exciting adventures that do not bear talking about here (ahem). Still, I somehow managed to dodge the obvious and dangerous drug traps (unless you count alcohol, that is, but we’ll save that for another post). Unhappily, not all my friends and loved ones have been as lucky.

Drugs can make you a clown — like the pathetic dude in this song — but at least in death a junkie can suddenly become a complex, troubled person again, gaining again a little of the dignity squandered in life.

previous AYoS version (2/19/2005)
Internet Archive page for this recording

Special Insider Sneak: The long-hidden electric version

The Devil’s Quicksand

It’s your second chance for the very last time
with your head in your hands and your future behind
grab your life pull as hard as you can
cause your up to your neck in the devil’s quicksand

if she told you once it was good advice
but a thousand times now that’s just a slice
of some other reality you’d prefer to ignore
it’s just that easy you shut the door

on the love she gave it was just too good
and you always hated how she understood
and you walked away and you felt so free
in the park that day spinning under the trees

but now its cold and the darkness comes
and the drugs wear off and your chums are scum
and the cyst on your arm is turning green
and the one-eyeds guys sez it’s the worst he’s seen

so you drag your ass to the ER room
and you wait 12 hours while the TV booms
and the little kids and the sobbing man
and the angel of death is right at hand

you just cant wait and you run outside
in the streetlight night you stop and cry
“is this their pain–or is it mine?”
you ask yourself but you knew all the time

it’s your second chance for the very last time
with your head in your hands and your future behind
grab your life pull as hard as you can
cause your up to your neck in the devil’s quicksand

twenty cents is all it takes
but ya drop the dimes cause ya got the shakes
ya try again an ya get ’em in
but the the phone just rings and your gut caves in

your knees give out ya hit the ground
people walking by just step around
ya see the sky you see the rain
ya see your ashes in a bag in a paupers grave

but the phones in your hand and your hanging on
and just before the dark her voice comes on
and ya tell her “baby just one last time”
she doesn’t say nothing you hear her crying

her sobbing lasts for such a long time
you almost forget why you’re on the line
then it comes back like a drano slam
you got one last chance slip this jam

“come on baby i’m on the bricks”
you can almost hear her kitchen clock tick
“I ain’t done nothin’ in 36 hours
and I need a place to take a shower”

and then it comes and you know you’re dead
her hollow laugh fills up your head
she drops the phone and it hits the floor
you hear her walk away and laugh some more

it’s your second chance for the very last time
with your head in your hands and your future behind
grab your life pull as hard as you can
cause your up to your neck in the devil’s quicksand

(C)1997, TK Major

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.