There’s one thing that The Fugitive has in common with other songs I wrote around the same time is that the title of the song doesn’t actually appear in the song. As a music listener, I hate when people do that. I mean, if I mentioned the songs Funk #49, Rainy Day Woman #13, Basket Case, or Baba O’Reilly, would you be able to hum them? You probably know all of them well, even if you don’t know their names. That’s bad enough, but as the writer of a song, the last thing I want is for anyone to have any difficulty whatsoever in actually finding the song if they wanted to. Still, somehow once I started thinking of the song as The Fugitive, it was hard to think of it as anything else. Later, when I recorded the song with my bandmates, I added “(The Man Don’t Forgive)” to the title to distinguish it from the earlier recording I did myself (and which, as a result, featured much better banjitar, bass and percussion), and at least that phrase does appear in the song.
I wrote this song around the time I was fronting a rather short-lived country band, and I was looking to add a country-rock song to the set that I could slide in between covers. It was important that the song have a distinctive guitar riff that announced the song, that the riff had enough energy that the song wouldn’t lag when I was playing it solo and, most importantly, it was easy enough to play that I wouldn’t need to concentrate too hard on it with everything else going on.
I bet you don’t know who I was back in my younger days
I’m a different man in my old age, a man who’s changed his ways
Changed my ways, my name, my hair, my clothes and all of my ID
Yeah, the world has heard the last of Willie Lee.
You wouldn’t recognize me now if you had known me then
I’ve made the most of my second chance and I won’t go back again
But still some curse the thought of me and their hearts just won’t be swayed
‘Till they’ve satisfied themselves my debt’s been paid.
I walk the line like an angel
I wake every night in a cold sweat
Twenty-five years since the day I climbed that wall
But the man he don’t forgive and he don’t forget
[Main Riff]
You think it sounds exciting but there’s no real tell to tell,
I just waited for my chance to go, and then I ran like hell
It’s a quiet life I live these days and I do the best I can
To serve the Lord and help my fellow man
And I walk the line like an angel
I wake every night in a cold sweat
Twenty-five years since the day I climbed that wall
But the man he don’t forgive and he don’t forget
You know the man he don’t forgive and he don’t forget
You don’t know me
But you don’t like me
As a man thinks in his heart
So is he
[Main Riff]
Somewhere they’ve got computers watching every move we make
And maybe you can sleep at night, but you know I lie awake
‘Cause one of them is searching now and I can guarantee
That some day it’s gonna find ol’ Willie Lee
And I walk the line like an angel
I wake every night in a cold sweat
Twenty-five years since the day I climbed that wall
But the man he don’t forgive and he don’t forget
I walk the line like an angel
I wake every night in a cold sweat
Twenty-five years since the day I climbed that wall
But the man he don’t forgive and he don’t forget
You know the man he don’t forgive and he don’t forget