So blistering was the sun that day
When I heard a voice beneath the clay,
Begging, crying out to me,
But naught I did to set it free.
I thought at once that I'd gone crazy
And my mind had gone all hazy
Or I had dug a grave too many,
But still the voice disturbed me plenty.
Those recurring dreams that cause dismay
They won't go away! Won't go away!
"Let me out, oh let me out,
I'm not dead please someone let me out!"
Those vivid nightmares straight from hell,
A distant tolling of the bell,
Sullen psalms respect the dead,
Bitter are the tears they shed.
Touching tributes to a friend,
Slow the coffin does descend.
Quiet do the bereaved depart,
Mats I strip and shoveling start.
The grave with earth I fill and fill.
Then sounds the voice; my spine does chill.
"Let me out, oh let me out,
I'm not dead please someone let me out!"
In modern times they do a lot,
Before they take 'em to the plot.
"Still beats the heart?"
The answer's no.
The mortician confirms and tags the toe.
Inside the casket with no air,
There cannot be any fatal error.
It's so unlikely and so absurd;
That those alive could be interred.
But I swear a voice did call to me
Though muffled and faint that it be.
"Let me out, oh let me out,
I'm not dead please someone let me out!"
Oft times inside these padded walls,
I hear those dreadful chanting calls.
I clasp my ears to drown it out,
By stamping feet and start to shout,
With swollen fists I bang the door
"I can't take no more! I can't take no more!"
The Doc he listens to my woe
But what I endure he does not know,
He does not hear that haunting cry.
From the man who did not die,
It's not madness that makes me shout
"I'm not insane, so let me out!"
'Let me out, oh let me out,
I'm not dead please someone let me out!'