Family Reserve

When I saw the ambulance screaming down Main Street
I didn't give it a thought
But it was my Uncle Eugene
He died on October
The second, nineteen eighty-one

Now my uncle Wilbert
They all called him Skinner
And they said for his younger ways
He'd get drunk in the morning
And show me the rolls of fifties and hundreds
He kept in the glove box of his old gray Impala

And we're all gonna be here forever
So mama, don't you make such a stir
Just put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve

Now my second cousin, his name was Calloway
He died when he'd barely turned two
It was peanut butter and jelly that did it
The help, she didn't know what to do
She just stood there and she watched him turn blue

And we're all gonna be here forever
So mama, don't you make such a stir
Just put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve

And my friend Brian Temple
He thought he could make it
So from the third story he jumped
And he missed the swimming pool only by inches
And everyone said he was drunk

And there was Great Uncle Julius
And there was Aunt Annie Miller
And Mary, and Granddaddy Po
And there was Hannah, and Ella
And Alvin, and Alec
And he owned his own funeral home

And there are more I remember
And more I could mention
And words I could write in a song
But I feel 'em watching
And I see 'em laughing
And I hear 'em singing along

We're all gonna be here forever
So mama, don't you make such a stir
Just put down that camera
And come on and join up
The last of the family reserve