Whore of Babylon — An opulent symbolic city of crowns and goblets dissolves beyond a bright Central Valley road as an adult street preacher and travelers choose a humble flowering path

The songbook

Whore of Babylon

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

Original Doug Heyes lyrics · AI-generated music & vocals

A dream encounter with the Whore of Babylon begins as guidance and descends into threats of possession, deprivation and harm. Biblical imagery becomes the language of an unstable bargain between temptation and forgiveness. The narrator closes by questioning whether inherited accounts can adequately describe the confusion of the world he is experiencing.

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Recorded versions

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

Lyrics

Whore of Babylon

Words by Douglas Heyes Jr

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WHORE OF BABYLON.1

I met the Whore of Babylon
In a Dream the other night
She said this Road you travel on
Is really quite all right
If your Dreams are unraveling
Because you have been dabbling
In things much darker than Desire
It takes a Spark to light a Fire

She took my hand, I followed her
Down to the Wishing Well
She said, my Home is down there
In the 7th Circle of Hell
My Master is Lucifer
And this is where He Lives
Even Fallen Angels
Must learn how to Forgive
This applies to all of Us
One Kiss that Flies like Fairy Dust
Or like candles in the breeze
Extinguish with a single breath
As you fall down on your knees
Pray for those around you
And the Others who are behind you
Let the price of their sacrifice
Serve to always remind you

Be careful whom you worship
Eyes Open when you pray
Where 13 Vestal Virgins
Are slaughtered where they lay
Hear the Children Sing and Play
From the Shores of Mandalay

Still so very far away
As far away as Yesterday
When all your Choices go astray
You wish you'd gone another way
That's when you must come to Me
Your Madness is my Ecstasy
Never think that you are Free
Know that you belong to Me
No Sheltered Isle across the Sea

Can save us from Eternity

Baptized Pentecostal, married Congregational
Allegiance situational
Your Headlines were sensational
Burning candles after Midnight
Purple mantle of the Acolyte
Beginner forever, Neophyte
And a cool hand in a Firefight
Somewhere on that mythic Shore
The one that we call Evermore
Awaits the One that you Adore
I am just here as your Whore
I do this for all Mankind
I turn the Water into Wine
I watch the Road you Travel on
I am the Whore of Babylon

I will Haunt you while you Sleep
I will Starve you when you Eat
I will harm you and your Family
There is no escaping Me

I will leave you destitute
Impoverished, a prostitute
The all is clear, the never was
Shed a tear now just because
You must admit you lost the Fight
Unjustly, though it was
Hypocrisy and Anarchy
Confusion and Chaos ñ

The Book of Revelations
Cannot hope to do it Justice
We need a new translation
Of the Worldview amongst us
And updated iteration
Of what is and never was
Between the Land of In Between
And the Land of Just Because

© Douglas Heyes Jr. All rights reserved.