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 hidin for his schoolin and his keep   with the carlysles and the other lucky bastards      now his toady tutors fawn and praise the man that he’s become   though he’s taken to the laudenum and faro   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   sayin father i would fain come home to meet thee   and though his worthless friends guffaw 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 knockin at his door   and he drags himself half-wasted to the threshold   it’s a message in his father’s quill sayin 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 honor thee tonight   he shouts as he goes weavin in the saddle   and he sees the stars go blinkin by like the twinkle in a trollop’s eye   and six riders riding madly in the shadows      this mornin 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