In the '51 flood the river got mean The levee broke at a town downstream Up on our levee where the county lines meet Caught a couple of their boys with some TNT Something had to give and it gave down there My thoughts are with you but my family's here It was you this time, it was us before Nothing's fair in flood and war And blood's thicker than water But thin and cold in the flood The mud and the guilt and the gun get heavy We do what we gotta We walk the levee My sisters married brothers from the neighboring town My cousin and his boy farm his father's ground I'm a Christian man with a Bible and a gun Just praying to God ain't gotta shoot no one CHORUS Now I'm just a man protecting his home Why do I feel like a dog out killing his own Itchy on the trigger, quick on the draw Shined a flashlight in the face of a twelve year old kid Who started crying for his ma I told him to get on home I saw him in church on Sunday, heard the minister speak About Noah and the ark and the other cheek And Jesus' love and Judas' kiss I'll think of that tonight on the graveyard shift CHORUS