Well, when I was a kid I’d take a trip
every summer down to Mississipp’
to visit my granny in her antebellum world.

I’d run barefooted all day long
climbin’ trees free as a song,
and one day I happened to catch myself a squirrel.

Well, I stuffed him down in an old shoe box,
punched a couple of holes in the top,
and when Sunday came I snuck him into 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,
an’ 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 was jumpin’ pews and shoutin’ Hallelujah!

Well, Harv hit the aisles dancin’ and screamin’,
some thought he had religion others thought he had a demon,
and Harv thought he had a weed eater loose in his Fruit-of-the-Looms.

He fell to his knees to plead and beg,
and the 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’d been watchin’ all the commotion with sadistic glee.

But you should’ve seen the look in her eyes
when that squirrel jumped her garters and crossed her thighs,
and 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 dissension,
but the thing that got the most attention
was when she talked about her love life and 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 was jumpin’ pews and shoutin’ Hallelujah!

Well seven deacons and the pastor got saved,
and twenty-five thousand dollars got raised,
and fifty volunteered for missions in the Congo on the spot.

And even without an invitation
there were at least five hundred rededications,
and we all got rebaptized whether we needed it or not.

Now you’ve heard the Bible story, I guess,
how He parted the waters for Moses to pass.
Oh, the miracles God has wrought in this old world.

But the one I’ll remember ’til 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 was jumpin’ pews and shoutin’ Hallelujah!

Mississippi Squirrel Revival
Produced and arranged by: Ray Stevens
Written by: Cyrus Kalb, Carlene Kalb
© 1984 MCA Records

Have It Your Way!
What kind of God would you like? We have God is Love, Our Mother Who Art in Heaven, and Somewhere Out There.

No Taxation without Preparation H
As colonists, we fought with an unelected, unaccountable tyrant for the right to be taxed by our unelected, unaccountable neighbors. Apparently we lost.