Table of the Lord – Jim Bickerstaff
This was the first of my songs that Johnny Sandlin noticed and his efforts in recording and getting cuts validated my writing in my mind. Johnny was kind but wasted no time on songs he didn’t hear and the fact that he heard this one humbles me today. Meanwhile, there are still hungry and homeless people all over the world.
Drums – Brian Owings
Bass – Oteil Burbridge
Piano – NC Thurman
B3 – Chalmers Davis
Electric Guitar – Kelvin Holly
Slide Guitar – Rick Kurtz
Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin & Vocal – Jim Bickerstaff
Background Vocals – Scott Boyer, Savannah Bickerstaff & Landis Yarovyy

Lyrics

Table of the Lord © 1990 J Bickerstaff

V1
There’s a moss brick alley in the middle of town
Fourteen stories with the shades pulled down
No looking in and the other way around

V2
In the corner by the trash where the valley turns black
A man lay sleeping with the wall at his back
Everything he owns in a paper-thin sack

CH
Now we don’t know nobody like that and we know everybody in the neighborhood
And we’ve been working hard all of our lives, and it’s finally starting to do us some good
So we’ll let somebody else do the crying
We’ll let somebody else draw the sword
We’ll let somebody else come and take our place at the table of the Lord

V3
Now there’s a mission on the corner of Despair and Main
A simple hot meal, a roof in the rain
A preacher talking gospel to an empty plate

V4
But there’s not enough money for the things that cost
Ain’t enough preachers want to die on the cross
And a whole lot of souls feeling troubled and lost

CH