The Nutcracker Buck Sessions

Way back in the bottom round Brazos Bend
Where the heat lay heavy and there ain’t no wind
In a cedar-pole shack among the catfish bones
Lived a river-rambling man named Zydeco Jones . . . .

He had a corncob pipe and a coonskin cap
And a pet bear cub that he caught in a trap
I used to go and see him when I was just a kid
If it was anybody else, old Zydeco hid . . . .

Zydeco Jones, what happened to you?
One day I went to find you and you hid from me too
Cedar shack gone and a highway coming through . . . .

In an airstream trailer on Musselwhite Road
Just me and my mama and a lonesome radio
And a singer singing about a love gone wrong
Along about then I met Zydeco Jones . . . .

I told him all the secrets that I had
About the whiskey and the sadness and the love gone bad
We roamed every inch of that river bottomland
If I ever felt lost he took me by the hand . . . .

We never talked much about the world out there
We just roamed and we rambled, me and him and that bear
But the years went past and time moved on
One day I went to the river and Zydeco was gone . . . .

Chorus

I grew up and went as far as I could go
From the whiskey and the sadness and the lonesome radio
One day a letter came, it said, We thought you’d wanna know
Your mama drank herself to death on Musselwhite Road
Finally drank herself to death on Musselwhite Road

Now I’m back in the bottom around Brazos Bend
Where a river used to a run and the highway don’t end
Remembering a sadness way deep down in my bones
For my imaginary friend named Zydeco Jones

Chorus