Chapter 13

A Friend...

The preacher steps in
and he's running straight for their hearts 
He's talking about sin
and how money can tear you and tear you apart
Just send him your cash
It's not hard he takes Visa and Mastercard
A will there's a way
Just start changing today

Chorus:

AHHHHHH! 4 times

Confess your sins!
Let it begin take it from a friend
It just ain't the end
Don't you fret at least just not yet
A will there's a way
Start changing today

Chorus

Repeat first and second verse.


Click Here to listen to the song..

"A Friend" was written after I was stabbed in the chest in a fight and lost about four pints of blood. I was getting very sleepy and delirious from the blood loss, and had a sort of an epiphany. Let me start at the beginning...
I had previously left home around 17 and never returned. My parents were on me to help pay rent. I was still in school with no real hope of a future; and I had my own ideas about who I wanted to become. I was living with a girl who was the inspiration for a few of the "bad breakup" songs of mine, and even a rockabilly song here and there. (See "Howlin' the Night.")
Anyway, I shacked up with this one particular girl and was living in a section 8 neighborhood in Edgewood, MD when I wound up fighting a man who was messing with some children in the neighborhood. After the initial confrontation, the man left and came back with a couple friends that worked me over and rammed a 12 inch knife in my chest. After managing to walk/run away from the fight, I stumbled into a yard where some people were sitting on their porch. I asked if they could call an ambulance for me then collapsed. My friend Jamie actually held the wound with a shirt and his knee to slow the bleeding but my lung had taken a pretty good knifing too, so it filled with blood and collapsed. Talk about hard to breathe! 911 sent the police first, so they had to come assess the situation before a chopper would land and take me to shock trauma.
So as I'm lying there, I actually think about dying, really wanting to close my eyes and call it quits. I was so tired....Damn tired. My friend kept telling me to hold on, and to wake up and not let go. The thought crossed my mind about my mother receiving these stupid little prayer envelopes through the mail, with the Reverend sending a piece of "prayer cloth" for her to pray on and of course to send a "love" offering back.

That's when it hit me.... "GOD NEEDS CASH!" I actually sat right up in the helicopter while mumbling this. The medic pushed me back down and tried to relax me. But the thought stuck with me even in my dreams. The preacher made it so clear in his letter... "God has told me something extraordinary is going to happen in your life and for me to contact you and bless you. Take this piece of prayer cloth, inspired from Jesus himself and anoint yourself with it for seven days and seven nights, chanting seven times a prayer. "Holy shit it worked! The cloth was a symbol of my friend holding the cloth on my wound! The chopper took 34 minutes to get there! 3 + 4 is 7!! And the paramedics stole my watch, rings and bracelet. A total of 7! I'm going to live just to thank this preacher with a song.

I do believe in God, enough to take several courses through a program called Project Phillip. And at one time I wanted to be a youth minister and got ordained by World Christianship Ministries. Do I believe the evangelist saved me with his prayer cloth? Hell no. We were pretty bad off financially in those times. In times like those, it seems people find religion. Tough times seem to attract religion; good times and nobody cares. It's sad but true. So did I ever thank Jim Baker and Tammy Faye? Nah, but I do have a sister that really resembles Tammy Faye Baker and I've thanked her before, so I think that counts about as much as that prayer cloth does. Maybe that money mom sent in did do something. All together now, back to the chorus, "Ahhhh! "

Seriously, I suppose the song is really about "wolves' in sheeps clothing". How good-hearted people get taken advantage of by people that are supposed to be "A Friend" to them and it gets so frustrating you just want to scream. Hence the chorus is nothing but screaming over and over. It's a really great song to sing when you need to blow off some steam, especially after watching the evening news


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