Preston Miller

Intro: He was born in Miller's mansion when the mistress was asleep The secret son of the chambermaid and master And they sent him into hiding, for his schooling and his keep With the Carlyles and the other lucky bastards Now his toady tutors fawn and praise the man that he's become Though he's taken to the Laudanum and Faro And he walks the streets like velvet death with his daddy's money on his breath And a shame he cannot shake, down in his marrow When day fades to black, you must not listen to the killer Pretty voices keep you beautiful and bound 'Cause the simple sorry fact of your existence, Preston Miller Is enough to bring this house of evil down One night upon some drunken dare, he writes his absent sire Saying, "Father, I would fain come home to meet thee" And though his worthless friends guffaw at this sudden show of fire Another round of bourbon and it's easy And this letter finds his father in his tower far away And the hoary claw that holds it shakes and trembles Is it grief over a life misspent, or love or greed or mere contempt Or something darker stirring in his temples When day fades to black, you must not listen to the killer Pretty voices keep you beautiful and bound 'Cause the simple sorry fact of your existence, Preston Miller Is enough to bring this house of evil down A week gone by, he's wakened by a knocking at his door And he drags himself half-wasted to the threshold It's a message in his father's quill saying, "Meet me, scion, if you will At the very stroke of midnight in the meadow" Now he has combed his laggard locks, and hired a comely roan And he's met his comrade fops around the fountain And he's bidden each a grand goodbye, and he's cantered off alone To meet his aged father in the mountains When day fades to black, you must not listen to the killer Pretty voices keep you beautiful and bound 'Cause the simple sorry fact of your existence, Preston Miller Is enough to bring this house of evil down "Oh, Father dear, come out, come out, I honour thee tonight," He shouts as he goes weaving in the saddle He sees the stars go blinking by, like the twinkling in a trollop's eye And six riders riding madly in the shadows This morning sailed a ship of fools across a sea of gin With a blind and grinning Reaper at the tiller And it drove an aging Jacob to his lone and bitter end And a bullet through the brain of Preston Miller