Song Description

"Renegade" is defined as a person who abandons a party, movement, or religion and goes over to the other side; a traitor (an Apache teaching totem pole classes for tourists). But what of the man who is himself abandoned? In good conscience he can't cross over to the other side, but his former alliances are now null and void, as well. As such, he is a man of no party and an enemy to all and thus is viewed as the embodiment of evil in its most profound sense. (That which threatens society internally is always the greatest danger.) He knows that he can't expect, nor does he want ("ignores the ...midnight reprieve) understanding or mercy and must forever live in shadows and moonlight, riding the border.

Lyrics

The RENEGADE

The Renegade, hey can't you see
that he expects no quarter.
It is plain that he ignored
the governor's order
of a midnight reprieve.

The Renegade rides at dark along the border,
He knows that he can't cross over,
branded a half-breed.

The Renegade lives in the shade
and in the shadows,
Of the townfolk's citadel--
the scarecrow gallows,
that shoos off apostasy.

And so he raids in moonlight along the river,
Plundering the women, gold and silver,
one jump on the posse.

The spectacled, cowboy-booted,
obese Apache,
Staggering through raindances
with his eyes all glassy,
chants into a microphone.

And in his dreams he scalps the tourist lasses,
Students in his totem pole classes,
on vacation too far from home.