"I don't know what's wrong" she said, "but somethings not quite right. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm going out tonight." She had a run of bad luck, but she never threw the fight. She did it 'cause she flt like tearing down the pretty lights.
She said, "Oh, now I see what the pretty lights have done to me. I check my pockets; I check the time. The pretty lights may never cease their shining."
She Suffered in the daytime; she was freezing every night, and when she closed her eyes, she was blinded by the pretty lights. She said, "Am I God's worst sinner? Will I disappear? I hear an evil voice; it's whispering into my ear.
And it says, 'Oh, now I see what the pretty lights have done to me. I check my pockets; I check the time. The pretty lights may never cease their shining.'"
God knows if she was born that way, and only He knows why she was running like a wounded animal, trying to evade a hunter's line of sight. She tried to strike a bargain, but the Lord wouldn't play that game, and in the harsh glare of the pretty lights everybody looks just about the same to him. She was trying to get dinner on the table. She was looking after her three kids. Her husband had fled at the first sign of trouble with the pretty lights about to begin. She was desperate for a savior. She had a closet full of hospital gowns. She had an address book with the names of her friends, but they never seemed to come around when the pretty lights were shining.
There was no moon out on the last night when she woke up from a dream; turned on the lamp beside her bed, but even so she couldn't see. She tried to use the telephone, but the telephone was dead. The Pretty lights were shining bright, but only in her head.
She said, "Oh, now I see what the pretty lights have done to me. I check my pockets; I check the time. They Pretty lights may never cease their shining."
The posthumous record by the legendary Tony Joe White is full of rugged, smoky blues & Americana, culled from a trove of demos. Bandcamp New & Notable May 10, 2021