Click here to listen to this track, which is based on Andrew Vachss’ novel Shella.

“Ghost” (5:39)
(Andrew Vachss, Barry Crawford) Copyright Control

Bazza — Vocals
Jim Boyer — Slide Guitar
Lynn Conover — Harmony Vocals & Rhythm Guitar
Bob Wadle — Bass
Johnny Ward — Harmonica
Ken Woodside — DrumsProduced by Bazza
Recorded and Mixed by Brian Jones

Lyrics:In a strip bar in Seattle, she was taking off her clothes
Her name was Shella—they call me … the Ghost
Like two blind dogs in the dark, we recognized the same silent whistle
We worked the badger game, till it blew through our brains like a guided missile

From Denver to Tampa, Houston to New Orleans,
Shella took a whipping, and … I copped a plea
For the man that beat her, I had to give him my worst regards
Shella disappeared that night, and I felt the bite of the prison yard

Truth still shining down on a world that seems gone wrong
Like an Iceberg Slim novel, and the beauty of its prose
There’ll be me one more trick baby
For every twelve that see the light

Truth still shining down
For another chance in life to get it right

When I got my papers, I searched for Shella
With Misty and the Indian, for her I’d do …. anything
I blew a white supremacist away, just to get the information
Found her in a hospital, looking like the wrong side of starvation

She told me about her father, of his calculated evil
This pedophilic monster calcified my mind to steel
He’s a predatory rodent, a rat should be put where he can’t dig….
She said, “I’m dying, do me!”
I said, “I love you,” and snapped her neck like a twig….

(CHORUS – repeat)

Truth still shining down on a world that seems gone wrong
Like an Iceberg Slim novel, and the beauty of its prose
There’ll be me one more trick baby
For every twelve that see the light

Truth still shining down
For another chance in life to get it right