Long about an hour before sunrise
she drags his body down to the edge of the swollen river
wrapped in a red velvet curtain stolen from the movie theater where she works Quiet as a whisper, under the stanchions of a washed-out bridge she cuts him looseand watches as the flood waters spin him around once, then carry him away Then she removes the golden ring upon her fingerand she throws it in And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you Baby why don't you cry? Three days later in a bar in southern Mississippi she meets a man by the name of Charles Lee She introduces herself to him as "Lee Charles" "What a coincidence" he saysand one week later they are married He wakes up one night six months down the line to find her staring at him in the oddest way When he says, "Honey, what's wrong?" she says, "Oh nothing dearexcept that tears are a stupid trick of God"
And by the time they find his body six weeks later Well hell, she's a thousand miles away And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you Baby why don't you cry?
She runs from devils She runs from angels She runs from the ghost of her father and five different uncles Blinded by their memory, seared by their pain, she'd like to kill 'em allthen kill 'em all again She don't think much about what she's done or the funny feelings that she feels No, she don't To her it's just a condition she picked up as a child a little thing she calls, "the wound that never heals", she calls it, "the wound that never heals" And I wonder; Baby why don't you cry? Baby why don't you
Baby why don't you cry?