TATTOO JESUS

It was all about a picture from an old magazine
Jesus in the arms of Mary Magdalen
Yes, it was all about a picture from an old magazine
Jesus in the arms of Mary Magdalen

Used to be a tattoo parlour
Going north on Guadaloupe
Artist there called Salvador
Come up from Mexico to Santa Fe
With his daughter - who never spoke
And his wife - the lovely Salome
That’s where I got religion
One minute down from 285 highway

It was a long hot summer
Back in eighty-four
Cottonwoods just starting to turn
When this big man comes through the door
Big man, come on a Harley
You could tell he’s a loner
Said he’d been searching for Jesus
All the way ‘cross Arizona

Big man full of sadness
There was grief in his eye
Like something in his heart was dead
Something else that didn’t want to die
He took out a picture
Torn from some magazine
Of Jesus with stigmata
In the arms of Mary Magdalen

It was all about a picture from an old magazine
Jesus in the arms of Mary Magdalen

He took off his waistcoat
His chest was smooth as silk and bare
He handed them the torn print and he said
‘I want that tattooed here!’
Like a man nailed to a cross
He lay down with arms stretched out wide
The pain on his face
Of a man crucified 

      . . . . .

The sun had long set
The work glowed like a prayer
Salvador rose slowly
From his working chair
One broken hand
Lay soft upon the heart
They waited in silence
For the broken beat to start 

                                                  ‘Cause it was all about a picture from an old magazine
                                                    Jesus in the arms of Mary Magdalen

Then Salvador’s daughter
Spoke - her first word ever
The man raised himself
Whole - free of the fever
I saw the passion of Jesus
Come alive!
And that’s when I got religion - - - - - - -