Well I caught my wife
with another man,
and it cost me 99
on a prison farm in Georgia,
close to the Florida line.
Well I've been here for twelve long years,
I finally made the warden my friend.
And so he sentenced me
to a life of ease
takin' care of Old Red.
Now old Red, he's the damdest dog
that I've ever seen.
Got a nose that can smell
a two-day trail,
he's a four-legged tracking machine.
You can consider yourself
mighty lucky
to get past the gators and the
quicksand fence.
But all these years that I've
been here and nobody got past Red.
And the warden sang,
"Come on somebody,
why don't you run?
Old Red's itching to have a little fun.
Get my lantern,
get my gun.
Red will have a treat
for the morning come."
Well I paid off the guard,
and I slipped out a letter
to my cousin up in Tennessee.
Oh, and he brought down
a blue-tick hound,
she was pretty as she could be.
Well, they pinned her up
in the swampland,
about a mile just south of the gate.
When I'd take old Red for his evening run,
I'd just drop him off
and wait.
And the warden sang,
"Come on somebody,
Why don't you run?
Old Red's itching to have a little fun.
Get my lantern,
Get my gun.
Red will have a treat
for the morning come."
Well old Red he got real used to seeing
his lady every night.
And so I kept him away
for three or four days,
and waited til the time got right.
Well, I made my run
with the evening sun,
and I smiled when I let old Red out.
Cause I was headed north to Tennessee,
and old Red was headed south.
And the warden sang,
"Come on somebody,
why don't you run?
Old Red's itching
to have a little fun.
Get my lantern,
get my gun.
Red will have treat
for the morning come."
Now there's red-haired blue ticks
all in the south.
Love got me in here,
and love got me out...*