From the recording The Noir Album
"God's Lonely Man" is Big B's tribute to one of his all-time favorite films, 1976's Taxi Driver. Musically this song employs strings and muted trumpets reminiscent of composer Bernard Herrmann's original score for that film. As a proven power trio, Big B and the Actual Proof aimed for a Jimi Hendrix/Robin Trower-type of sound, which required Big B's use of one their favorite signature guitar effects, a pedal called a Uni-Vibe.
Lyrics
God's Lonely Man
Honorable discharge May 1971
Since then I just can’t sleep
Since then I talk to no one
I ride around at night on the subways and buses
A spring wound too tight
A bomb no one touches
So I got a job driving a cab
in the worst parts of town
Might as well get paid to see it
Might as well get paid to be down
I see the dope pushers,
I see the filth and the scum…
I see the skanks and the hookers…
Some day a real rain’s gonna come
It’s gonna wash these streets clean
And they’ll say “Here is a man who stood up
Here is a man who wouldn’t take it any more
Here is…here is…here is…”
The idea had been growing
in my brain for some time
So I went to see the Wizard
Not feeling right in my mind
“Man…I got these bad ideas.
I just wanna go out and really...
I just wanna go out…and really do something.
Man, I got these bad ideas.”
He said, “Taxi life got ya down?
Happens to the best of us man,
I mean look at it this way
A man takes a job, you know?
And that job, I mean that becomes what he is.
You know, like you do a thing
and that’s what you are.
You get a job, you become the job.
One guy lives in Brooklyn.
One guy lives in Sutton Place, you got a lawyer.
Another guy’s a doctor. Another guy dies.
Another guy gets well.
People are born. I envy your youth.
Go on and get laid. Go get drunk.
Do anything. You got no choice, anyway.
I mean, we’re all fucked.”
I said,“I don’t know man. That’s about the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
My whole life has pointed in one direction
I see that now
There’s never been any choice for me
I only know one way how
So I choose the 44 magnum…I choose the 38
I choose the 32...I choose the 25
I’m God’s lonely man
Are you talkin’ to me? Are you talkin’ to me?
I am God’s lonely man, I am God’s lonely man…