Reverend Mr. Black - Bill Anderson

Chorus:

I gotta walk that lonesome valley.

I got to walk it by myself.

Oh nobody else

can walk it for me.

I got to walk it by myself.

You got to walk that lonesome valley.

You got to walk it by yourself.

Oh nobody else can walk it for you.

You got to walk it by yourself.

If ever I could have thought this man in black was soft and had any yellow up his back, I gave that notion up the day a lumberjack came in and it wasn’t to pray.

Yeah, he kicked open the meeting house door and he cussed everybody up and down the floor!

Then, when things got quiet in the place, he walked up and

cusses in the preacher’s face!

He hit that Reverend like a kick of a mule and

to my way of thinkin' it took a real fool to turn the other face to that lumber

jack, but that’s what he did, The Reverend Mr. Black.

He stood like a rock,

a man among men and he let that lumberjack hit him again, and then with a voice as quiet as could be, he cut him down like a big oak tree when he said:

(Chorus)

It’s been many years since we had to part and I guess I learned his ways by heart.

I can still hear his sermon’s ring, down in the valley where he used to sing.

I followed him, yes, sir, and I don’t regret it and I hope I will always

be a credit to his memory 'cause I want you to understand.

The Reverend Mr.

Black was my old man!

(Chorus)