The Mississippi Squirrel Revival

Ray Stevens - The Mississippi Squirrel Revival
Album: Collection
Thanks to Alice Kay for streaming this gem.

Well when I was kid I'd take a trip every summer, down to Mississippi.
To visit my granny in her ante bellum world.
I'd run barefooted all day long, climbing trees free as a song.
One day I happened catch myself a squirrel.
I stuffed him down in an old shoebox, punched a couple holes in the top
and when Sunday came, I snuck him in the church.

I was sittin way back in the very last pew showin him to my good
buddy Hugh, when that squirrel got loose and went totally berserk!
Well what happened next is hard to tell.
Some thought it was Heaven others thought it was Hell.
But the fact that something was among us was plain to see.
As the choir sang "I Surrender All"
the squirrel ran up Harv Newlan's coveralls.
Harv leaped to his feet and said, "Somethin's got a hold on me!" YEOW!

The day the squirrel went berserk,
in the First Self-Righteous Church
in that sleepy little town of Pascagoula.
It was a fight for survival, that broke out in revival.
They were jumpin pews and shouting Hallelujah!

Well Harv hit the aisles dancin and screamin, some thought he had religion, others thought he had a demon.
Harv thought he had a weed eater loose in his fruit of the looms.
He fell to his knees to plead and beg, and that squirrel ran out of his britches leg, unobserved to the other side of the room.
All the way down to the Amen pew where sat Sister Bertha "Better than you" who had been watching all the commotion with safistic glee.
Shoot, you should've seen the look in her eyes when that squirrel jumped her garders and crossed her thighs.
She jumped to her feet and said, "Lord have mercy on me!"
As the squirrel made laps inside her dress,
she began to cry and then to confess
to sins that would make a sailor blush with shame.
She told of gossip and church dissention,
but the thing that got the most attention
is when she talked about her love life, then she started naming names!

The day the squirrel went berserk,
in the First Self-Righteous Church
in that sleepy little town of Pascagoula.
It was a fight for survival, that broke out in revival.
They were jumpin pews and shouting Hallelujah!

Well seven deacons and then the pastor got saved
and 25,000 dollars got raised.
And 50 volunteered for missions in the Congo on the spot.
And even without an invitation there were at least 500 rededications.
And we all got rebaptised whether we needed it or not.

Now you've heard the Bible stories I guess of how
He parted the waters for Moses to pass.
All the miracles God has brought to this ol' world.
But the one I'll remember to my dyin day is how he put that church
back on the narrow way with a half crazed Mississippi Squirrel.

The day the squirrel went berserk,
in the First Self-Righteous Church
in that sleepy little town of Pascagoula.
It was a fight for survival, that broke out in revival.
They were jumpin pews and shouting Hallelujah!
 
 
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