I had nobody on the telephone

I was all alone

And drifting far.

Then you met in my misery.

Warm company,

A fallen star.

Burnin' bright I could not see the truth,

Everything you do

is not for me.

The hand is writing on the wall,

Cause I'm sick of all

Your sorcery.

Hey, Lucifer,

Lucifer:

I bid adieu.

Ah, Yeshua

Yes you were

Always true.

You had me pent up on your pentagram,

Spun round and round

A time or six.

And I played your ancient game,

held to the flame,

River Styx.

I don't think you realize

I've been baptized

In the Indian Springs.

Dark lord I can't be true,

Cause it ain't to you

I play these strings.

Hey, Lucifer,

Lucifer:

I bid adieu.

Ah, Yeshua

Yes you were

Always true.

Hey, hey, Lucifer,

Lucifer,

Farewell to you.

Ah sweet Yeshua,

Yes you were

Always true.

Hey, hey Lucifer, Lucifer:

To Hell with you.

This song came from an awareness of my own past, my family’s past, and how certain temptations have a way of repeating themselves.

My family historically had ties to Appalachian folk witchcraft. When my mother was an infant, relatives in the Carolinas who practiced what they called “white magic” performed a ritual over an illness she had. As a teenager, she later found herself drawn toward some of those same practices.

I knew none of this.

At roughly the same age, in the early 2000s, I developed my own fascination with the occult and eventually attempted divination with some kids in my high school library. In the middle of it, my turned-off flip phone rang.

It was my mother.

“Whatever you are doing right now, you need to stop in the name of Jesus.”

I froze. Then I ran. Literally.

Only afterward did she tell me her own history. She has always maintained that the Holy Spirit prompted that phone call. I agree.

Years later, while playing music in my twenties, I found myself around a lot of hippie culture that I never quite assimilated into—and often found pretty annoying. I watched “peace” music drift into psychedelia, crystals, saging and altered consciousness, then drugs and pharmakeia, and eventually back toward occult spirituality.

For me, there was a recognizable pattern to it. Different expressions, but a familiar temptation.

That's the “round and round” I mention in the song.

Eventually, I simply became tired of the sales pitch. That's also why I'm not interested in making Lucifer particularly fascinating, mysterious, or impressive here. The song is less a dramatic confrontation with darkness than a rather tired dismissal of it.

I bid adieu.

Farewell to you.

And finally, To Hell with you.

Against all of that is the much simpler refrain:

Yeshua,
Yes you were
Always true.

That's really the song. Darkness had become repetitive, tiresome, and remarkably predictable.

Jesus had been the constant all along. Always true.