Written, Recorded and Performed by Jeff Stachyra with John Kanazawich / Wurlitzer Electric Piano and The Stoutmen (Roy Bartrum, Tim Lynch, Sean Walsh) / Backing Vocals
As the soldiers are loaded on to the ship, the clairvoyant pier speaks.
The Pier
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the riverboat)
The pier was long. It had serious reach. And with each of its infinite waves that waterlogged its very foundation, it grew increasingly angry.
Its boards assembled perpendicular to the ultimate destination from its failed, facilitated foes of its simple but functional existence.
It laughs to itself knowing the predetermined early demise that awaits the owners who fill the shoes that tread upon it.
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the riverboat)
From the lush overgrown mossy shore to the cool uncertain breeze that greets each visitor that steps off onto the awaiting vessel.
Loud, clanking, bobbing, wretched smelling, smoke-bellowing excuse for maritime transport, spirits all but run the ginormous paddle wheel.
Once the last chain-linked sinner completes the ascend, the pier returns to its cold sleep and once again, they depart.
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the riverboat)
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the riverboat)
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the riverboat)
A lurch – a lunge and with a cloud of thick blank sooty smoke it propels the spirits to be, almost appearing to go backwards as the shore begins to move.
In the shallow vacant eyes of the huddled masses, there’s a certain calm, each one posses as if to be at peace with the journey.
One hundred and eighty degrees to break the current and creep back up to Missouri, you can smell the fate cast before them on the riverboat.
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the riverboat)
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the riverboat)
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the riverboat)
(Burn down the wheel / Burn down the wheel)
