Family Reserve

When I saw the ambulance
 Screaming down Main Street
 I didn't give it a thought
 But it was my Uncle Eugene
 He died on October the second 1981
 And my Uncle Wilbert
 They all called him Skinner
 They said for his younger ways
 He'd get drunk in the morning
 And show me the rolls of fifties and hundreds
 He kept in the glove box of his old gray Impala
 And we're all gonna be here forever
 So Mama don't you make such a stir
 Now put down that camera
 And come on and join up
 The last of the family reserve
 Now my second cousin
 His name was Callaway
 He died when he'd barely turned two
 It was peanut butter and jelly that did it
 The help she didn't know what to do
 She just stood there and watched him turn blue
 And we're all gonna be here forever
 So Mama don't you make such a stir
 Just put down that camera
 And come on and join up
 The last of the family reserve
 And my friend Brian Temple
 He thought he could make it
 So from the third story he jumped
 He missed the swimming pool
 Only by inches
 And everyone said he was drunk
 Now there was great Uncle Julius
 And Aunt Annie Mueller
 And Mary and Granddaddy Paul
 And there was Hanna and Ella
 And Alvin and Alec
 He owned his own funeral hall
 And there are more I remember
 And more I could mention
 Than words I could write in a song
 But I feel them watching
 And I see them laughing
 And I hear them singing along
 We're all gonna be here forever
 So Mama don't you make such a stir
 Just put down that camera
 And come on and join up
 The last of the family reserve