I'll never forget when I first came upon him.
His headlights seemed so out of place,
half up in the tree that had finally brought him
to a stop with just a cut on his face.
Ray swore he was fine as he cursed at the pine tree
that had kept him from leaving the cliff.
He refused any help, but I pulled out his car keys
to keep him from becoming a stiff.

He's DRUNK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN.
And each time he's nearer the end.
He binges and boozes and everyone loses
to a cost no one's willing to spend.
He's DRUNK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN.
He's DRUNK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN.

I continued my journey and flagged down a trooper
to tell him where Ray could be found.
When I got back the next night, I was thrown for a looper,
'cause his car had been nowhere around.
He wasn't too drunk to find where he'd been hiding
an extra key that he had stashed.
He wasn't too sober to keep him from driving
or ending three lives in a crash.

CHORUS

We all have our demons
that torture and taunt us
and maybe some drive us to drink.
There are spirits just waiting
for their chances to haunt us
and they're not quite as tame as we think.

If you've never witnessed a head-on collision,
I won't be detailing it here.
Suffice it to say, not a welcome addition
to anyone's life any year.
But Ray did survive to be faced with the charges
of three counts of just third degree.
With no prior convictions, his record unmarred as
the judge slapped his wrist, set him free.

CHORUS

You'd think in this age of enlightened observers,
we'd somehow make some kind of sense.
But yet we still manage to treat highway murder
as a less than too serious offense.

CHORUS