Criminal Instinct — An adult antihero pauses at a Merced crossroads between a courthouse, pawnshop and open highway amid broken chains and chess pieces

The songbook

Criminal Instinct

Words by Douglas Heyes Jr. Listen to the recorded versions and follow the lyric below.

Original Doug Heyes lyrics · AI-generated music & vocals

A threatening narrator imagines pursuit, revenge and a criminal empire pressing at the door. Street intimidation gives way to mythic adversaries and the claim that the tale is an allegory. The lyric maintains the tension between outlaw self-invention, moral certainty and the violence concealed inside the speaker's version of justice.

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Recorded versions

3 recordings. Different voices and arrangements bring another side of the song into the light.

Lyrics

Criminal Instinct

Words by Douglas Heyes Jr

Save Lyrics as Text
CRIMINAL INSTINCT

I'm going to shank these guys
Any chance that I get
Forget about the Blindfold
And the Cigarette
It's my Criminal Instinct
A-comin' to the fore
Got a Criminal Empire
A-knockin' on the door

You and Me Together
Gonna take 'em down
Spread their Wanted Posters
All over this Town
They don't want to be here
When the Sun goes down
At the endin' of the Day
When the Devils come around

We're gonna track 'em down
Gonna run 'em like the Hounds
If it takes the whole Town
Gonna put 'em Underground
If I had a Dollar
Every time they come around
I'd be a whole lot Richer
Than I am Right Now

Bet your Bottom Dollar
On a Parlay Play
Gonna put 'em under Water
By the Endin' of the Day
A leather-studded Collar
Gotta send 'em on their way
And a Letter in the Mail
That they got Bills to Pay

Instinct of a Criminal
Keepin' it Subliminal
Enemy of Lucifer
Riding on a Minotaur
I got a cool Collection
Down in my Backpack
We got Natural Selection
And they won't be coming back

It's my Criminal Instinct
It don't matter what you think
We got a Laboratory
In the Kitchen Sink
I'm tellin' you the Story
Of a Real Allegory
Writin' on the Rocks
With only Pen and Ink
Live outside the Box
With your Criminal Instinct

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© Douglas Heyes Jr. All rights reserved.