Crickets are chirpin', the water is high   There's a soft cotton dress on the line hangin' dry   The windows wide open, African trees   Bent over backwards from a hurricane breeze      Not a word of goodbye, not even a note   She'd gone with the man in the long black coat      Somebody seen him hangin' around   At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town   He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask   If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask      Somebody said from the Bible he'd quote   There was dust on the man in the long black coat      Preacher was a-talkin', there's a sermon he gave   He said, "Every mans conscience is vile and depraved   You cannot depend on it to be your guide   When it's you who must keep it satisfied      It ain't easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat   She gave her heart to the man in the long black coat      There are no mistakes in life, some people say   And it's true sometimes, you can see it that way      But people don't live or die, people just float   She went with the man in the long black coat      There's smoke on the water, it's been there since June   Tree trunks uprooted beneath the high crescent moon   Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumblin' force   Somebody is out there beating on a dead horse      She never said nothin', there was nothin' she wrote   She'd gone with the man in the long black coat