Uncle Sam don’t pay enough to employ experts
don’t pay me enough to supervise industrial alcohol plants
or outwit crafty moonshiners and smugglers whose pockets bulge
to count out barrel rings to be sure every barrel got burned
hunker against a cold brick wall with my feet in snow
waiting for hours just to maybe see Patrolman Percy
or his boys hefting Canadian hooch
fifty bucks a week ain’t enough for this boy to walk into a gun fight  

the pleasures of good food and drink, a bit of jazz, are denied me
but my buddies and me know to hold back some when we raid
So when Isaac Murphy approached me said he’d pay me
a hundred a week if I’d look the other way
say I found no bottles in flour sacks on the box cars
that left his farm on Vaugh’s Creek
ignore the stash he had in his customized Cadillac –  

Damn straight I was in
and never got caught.