She stands at the doorway, "Proud Mary, bad news:
Demands from the credit and the sheriff's men too."
The wife of a fisherman no longer at sea
But she can always find him where whisky flows free.
She never called it poverty, the doorstep is clean
To city hall come calling to show what it means.
Have you seen it before, the names of good women and men
Decreed by the sword and the pen
To be outlaws all over again.
The names in the churchyard are long overgrown
But still she comes kneeling with flowers of her own.
They're watching you, Mary, in hard times afraid
As council finds guilty for charges unpaid.
And even as your last hope is labelled and sold
We're all for one, Mary, outlawed for gold.
You've seen it before, the names of good women and men
Decreed by the sword and the pen
To be outlaws all over again.