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Dead Man Ride

Copyright Notice

Amazingly this is a completely true story! I heard it on the radio on the way home from work one evening and almost crashed the car. As soon as I got home I made some quick notes of the details of the event and a few weeks later had the song.

It happened in late 1998. A man in Copenhagen, who had a very close attachment to his father, decided to give him a really good send off. So, he sneaked him out of the mortuary and drove him around Copenhagen for three and a half hours on his motorbike, stopping off at all of his father’s favourite haunts.

Everything in this song, including the bracket up the jacket, was included in the news report.

I went down to the mortuary
And I got you off the slab
I dressed you up in your black leathers
I was glad that you were my dad
I put on your dark glasses
To cover up your dead eyes
And I dragged you from that place of death
To my Harley parked out side

Well,  I glued you on the saddle
I had to make sure you didn't fall
I stuck a bracket up your jacket
You were sitting proud and tall
Well we started off so stately
But soon I picked up speed
I was cruising around the city streets
You were rocking in the breeze

We stopped outside your favourite bar
I manhandled you inside
In the dark and gloom in there
No-one noticed that you'd died
I prised open your dead fingers
Stuck a drink in your left hand hand
And I stuck a cheroot in your dead mans lips
As we listened to the band

Dead man ride, Dead man ride

We talked  about my childhood
And all the things that I'd done
You didn't speak but I swear you listened
To the rantings of your son
I wasn't sad, I was so happy
To be drinking with my dad
In this bar down in Copenhagen I thought
"Hey, Death, you ain’t so bad!"

I went back to the mortuary
They couldn't believe their eyes
When I parked my Harley Davidson
And carried you back inside
We lifted you so gently
And put you on your slab
When I took off your dark glasses I smiled
And I swear you smiled back