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Speaker 1: Yeah, I am the fairy man.

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Speaker 2: The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,

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Speaker 2: the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.

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Speaker 3: I regret to tell you that very many American lives

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Speaker 3: in love. What herd to shouts from the car, he's dead.

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Speaker 3: Whether he rebird to president or four hours, people must

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Speaker 3: get up and identifica.

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Speaker 2: I am here in the in between, to collect their

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Speaker 2: spirits and carry them to what comes next. This road

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Speaker 2: is not on any map. It spans the thresholds between

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Speaker 2: their most forbidden desires and their greatest fear. All I

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Speaker 2: ask for in payment is a tale and accounting of

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Speaker 2: their lives and the great temporary that is the land

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Speaker 2: we're living. These are their stories.

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Speaker 4: This is the Passage.

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Speaker 2: August sixth, nineteen thirty eight, The Mississippi Delta, the bad Lands. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: the nights here are damp and tipid, the reek of cypress,

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Speaker 2: rust and blood. The smell that seeps out of the

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Speaker 2: swamps and hangs in the mist. This is fertile ground

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Speaker 2: from which so much has come and so much exploited,

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Speaker 2: seated by the leathered hands of black sharecroppers and tenant farmers.

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Speaker 2: The souls who work this ground have birthed the music

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Speaker 2: so deep and mournful it is woven itself into the

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Speaker 2: tapestry of this nation and become the soundtrack of its sorrow.

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Speaker 2: And here, standing on the platform, its most enigmatic practitioner. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: the mysterious soul whose life will become the stuff of myths,

27
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Speaker 2: a bluesman whose talents are unmatched, and whose music will

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Speaker 2: shape generations of singers and songwriters. He had a gum.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Despite this, he leaves behind very little, like a ghost who,

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Speaker 2: in the land of the living now only exists in

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Speaker 2: his records. His spirit exists here, freshly disembodied, holding the moonlight,

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Speaker 2: still an old guitar in hand. Yeah, Robert Johnson, Robert,

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Speaker 2: I'm here to offer you passage.

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Speaker 5: Is that so? I thought I heard screams off in

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Speaker 5: the distance, But it turns out just to be the

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Speaker 5: squeal of your train grind into a hole. All that

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Speaker 5: momentum mosse just for me. Yeah, it's a lot of

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Speaker 5: train for one guy. This is true, you know, without

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Speaker 5: meaning to, my hand keeps finding its way back to

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Speaker 5: my throat. But it's intact once more, no hanging tendons,

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Speaker 5: no blood pooling into my collar bombs. How about that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: How about that? You leave in the shape you prefer?

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Speaker 5: Is that so?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're looking good kid.

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Speaker 5: You know, once I saw you on sightly Locomotive, I

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Speaker 5: felt relief. Believe it or don't, It seems my gamble

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Speaker 5: paid off. Even now I can still see the faces

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Speaker 5: contorting and pain and the dark masses of smoke billowing overhead.

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Speaker 2: Sorry it's unsightly. I mean, what do you want to

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Speaker 2: shiney one?

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Speaker 4: Now?

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Speaker 5: How much for a ticket?

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Speaker 2: Ain't payment? As your story?

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Speaker 5: Who show was hot in here? Didn't think? I still

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Speaker 5: feel things when my body went to the dogs. I

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Speaker 5: ain't no more dilly dallying.

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Speaker 2: Take a seat, thank you?

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Speaker 5: Mind if I tune this girl?

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Speaker 2: Look while we talked, it wouldn't seem unnatural if you didn't.

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Speaker 5: Much blushed. Now I can see you've been on the

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Speaker 5: job a good while. There are plenty of rugging mean, nonjurine,

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Speaker 5: you got here too, a lot better than the greyhound.

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Speaker 5: Probably ain't always been this way, though, you know they

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Speaker 5: say back in the old days you work then oire,

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Speaker 5: But the times are changing faster than your train could blink. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: it seems like you had to econdomize the world's getting

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Speaker 5: big all the time. Stands the reason. That's got to

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Speaker 5: be a more efficient way to carry the abundance souls

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Speaker 5: to the end of the line. Put us on an

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Speaker 5: assembly belt and drag us straight into the balls. Well,

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Speaker 5: what do you got to show for your work, big man?

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Speaker 5: Nothing but more of it, I reckon. I bet a

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Speaker 5: lot of people come up on in here scared of you,

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Speaker 5: not me. You see uh with ken You and I

78
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Speaker 5: not on account of our skin and nothing. I figured

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Speaker 5: you don't have skin, not rightly? Nah, we can is suffering.

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Speaker 5: I recogniz it was the first deal, a deal we broke,

81
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Speaker 5: the tree of knowledge and the eating of its fruit.

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Speaker 5: That there was our first taste of free will, and

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Speaker 5: the beginning of two sides of men, good and evil

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Speaker 5: stirred together. Ever since then, man's worked the dirt and

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Speaker 5: the Almighty has worked us over. But you and me

86
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Speaker 5: we stuck somewhere in between all that. They tell us

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Speaker 5: we're free people. But I'm spending my childhood on a plantation,

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Speaker 5: hiding out from men with guns and ropes. Maybe that's

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Speaker 5: why I decided I'm traveling so much once I got grown.

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Speaker 5: Seeing where we are now, I'm guessing my traveling days

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Speaker 5: ain't over yet. Be rambling man. You and I I

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Speaker 5: got a proposition of sorts. I know you've been on

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Speaker 5: the job since before time itself got up and running.

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Speaker 5: And I ain't even live as long as my old man,

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Speaker 5: But I bet to feel it's the same. I'm thinking

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Speaker 5: you and I could use a change of scenery. Let

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Speaker 5: me not get ahead of myself. You know, my friends

98
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Speaker 5: warned me against taking the deal. My family, blessed their hearts,

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Speaker 5: thought I was smart enough not to do it. But

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Speaker 5: here I am playing the long come.

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Speaker 4: Was it worth it?

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Speaker 5: That's all I ever asked. You can never know a

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Speaker 5: thing until it's over, and I don't think it's over yet.

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Speaker 5: The hell I look like living until I'm soiling myself

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Speaker 5: died back in worse eyes, being chased from the gulf

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Speaker 5: to the tip of Maine and back again, just because

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Speaker 5: I'm darkening some white man's eyesight. Is it any wonder

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Speaker 5: that the Blues was born from this country? What if

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Speaker 5: I tell you the story goes just like they say,

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Speaker 5: I met the snake. They said I'd find him there

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Speaker 5: at the crossroads, and that I did. It was a

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Speaker 5: night not unlike this one, But I tell you like this,

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Speaker 5: I have never been so cold as I was that night.

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Speaker 5: The wind whipped and there was this kind of sleep

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Speaker 5: that I take your face right off and make sure

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Speaker 5: they only meet men on nights like that, so he

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Speaker 5: knows they're serious. And he was not one to waste

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Speaker 5: his time. We made a trade. Maybe it was just

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Speaker 5: a fever dream. Either way, I woke up a changed man.

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Speaker 5: I had a song in me, like a wolf beneath

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Speaker 5: the moon. I knew I couldn't sit, so I left.

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Speaker 5: I chased the songs, and my fingers felt different, and

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Speaker 5: when I held the guitar it was like I had

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Speaker 5: been born with it. I couldn't farm no more. My

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Speaker 5: hands couldn't plow or picked no more. I saw my

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Speaker 5: reflection in the waters, and I saw a different face

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Speaker 5: staring back at me. Not the face of a farmer,

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Speaker 5: and not the face of a family man. Now I

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Speaker 5: saw the face of a walking man. And that's the truth,

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Speaker 5: whether it happened in a dream or not. So I left,

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Speaker 5: I howled, I played till my fingers blood and my

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Speaker 5: thoat was raw. And while I was away, the devil

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Speaker 5: came for everything I left behind, came from my sweet Virginia.

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Speaker 5: She died and childbirth, and when I came home, they

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Speaker 5: scorned me, said it was divine punishment for me selling

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Speaker 5: my soul to the devil. But my grieving and my

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Speaker 5: pain was necessary. It became the fuel for the flame.

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Speaker 5: It completed my transformation. I had a river in me

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Speaker 5: now the blues. You know, it's not a secret that

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Speaker 5: the dirt of a crossroad shres common ground with your world.

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Speaker 5: This land's been filled with meaning, deep meaning since before

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Speaker 5: any of us visitors got here. Roads are filled with intention.

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Speaker 5: You understand people with purpose and drive making their way

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Speaker 5: towards the destination or dying, trying. People in motion, whether

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Speaker 5: willing or not, imbue the land with meaning. Not that

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Speaker 5: I got to tell you that. Oh sure, our ships

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Speaker 5: and planes bring us closer, but the suffering of our people,

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Speaker 5: all peoples will grow and there's no stopping that. He

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Speaker 5: told me. So that's the knowledge I gained at the

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Speaker 5: cost of my soul. Few good years of playing, and

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Speaker 5: them hellhounds took the flesh right out of my neck.

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Speaker 5: I knew they would. I know a lot of things. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: I know. Folks won't find my grave because there won't

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Speaker 5: be one. It's part of the deal. And so what

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Speaker 5: the Devil's honest. I'll tell you that he tells you

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Speaker 5: what you'll get, and he delivers. All I ask for

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Speaker 5: was knowledge. In my whole life, there's only ever been

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Speaker 5: one type of some bitch that want to keep us uneducated,

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Speaker 5: one type that stacks the deck against you before you're

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Speaker 5: even born. One type of person that keeps knowledge from you.

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Speaker 5: And they're in charge of who can know what? And

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Speaker 5: don't they hate us? Learning sounds familiar, do it? I

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Speaker 5: mean they say we're made in God's image, but they

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Speaker 5: don't mean us, No, they mean them. They're always going

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Speaker 5: on hanging up portraits of a blue eyed Jesus and

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Speaker 5: church halls. Then they say that old scratch is black.

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Speaker 5: Of course they will. I tell you that man at

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Speaker 5: the crossroads ain't looking nothing different than all of them

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Speaker 5: paintings at that church. Hey, hey, was that a laugh

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Speaker 5: I heard from you, your big oarsman. I mean I

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Speaker 5: couldn't rightly tell I mean, you know what I'm speaking

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Speaker 5: true that they call America the Land of the Free,

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Speaker 5: right considering how this country was built, is it any

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Speaker 5: wonder folks around here got a messed up idea of

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Speaker 5: what freedom is They always wanted to throw the blame

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Speaker 5: on Satan or the old lady, not me. No, No,

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Speaker 5: I got myself in this pot, and I guess I'm

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Speaker 5: gonna cook. You know, freedom only means something to folks

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Speaker 5: if someone else has it worse, so that they can

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Speaker 5: compare themselves. A man gets yelled at by the forming

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Speaker 5: of a factory or in the yard and comes home

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Speaker 5: and puts his hands on his wife or children. First

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Speaker 5: time he gets a reason to. It's the land of subjugation,

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Speaker 5: founded on a religion of subjugation. Violence comes from the

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Speaker 5: top down. Might be time to change that the truth

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Speaker 5: before I ask the devil for knowledge, ask the Lord

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Speaker 5: for mercy. Yeah, all I wanted was to not hurt anymore.

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Speaker 5: Stop the cycle, just stop the hurting, stop being hurt.

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Speaker 5: I suppose I asked because I didn't have the balls

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Speaker 5: to take the yoke off myself. That's a sin too,

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Speaker 5: you know, deciding to go by your own hand when

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Speaker 5: salvation didn't come. I asked for strength when I wasn't

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Speaker 5: granted the strength and change. I asked for the knowledge

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Speaker 5: to know what to do. I knew I was talking

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Speaker 5: out of turn. Why is it what made to play

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Speaker 5: the game before we even know the rules. Well, now

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Speaker 5: I know everything. I saw it all right. Then that's

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Speaker 5: the hounds ripped into my throat. Just added a little

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Speaker 5: more gravel to these hit vocals. It's dissonance that makes

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Speaker 5: music good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, distenance, I know all about it. This is very true.

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Speaker 5: Why sure it is? The animals gotta figure it out, eat, sleep, fight,

203
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Speaker 5: rut when you can. Anything else is nonsense. The only

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Speaker 5: other thing any good is music, and that just helps

205
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Speaker 5: us make sense of it all. I mean, your soul

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Speaker 5: is at as low as we sing? Do you sing?

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Speaker 5: You know? The serpent gave the woman knowledge, then she

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Speaker 5: gave it to us. That's how come women are smarter

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Speaker 5: than us. Don't trust the men. Folk trust the animal.

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Speaker 5: Trust the women trust the goat, trust the witches. Don't

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Speaker 5: trust the preacher.

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Speaker 4: Man.

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Speaker 5: Why you think they don't let women preach because they'll

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Speaker 5: tell the truth, because they know how this world was built.

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Speaker 5: I didn't listen, ain't no woman could tell me nothing.

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Speaker 5: It took the serpent to set me straight. And now I.

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Speaker 2: See what do you see? Oh?

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Speaker 5: Now I'm getting that. Everybody is so sure that I'm

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Speaker 5: going to burn. But I don't think that's the case.

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Speaker 5: You see, we got free will, He gave it to us,

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Speaker 5: and he punishes us for exercising it. But we do

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Speaker 5: you think humans are the only ones with it? Why

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Speaker 5: you think he ran Elucifer out of town in the

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Speaker 5: first place. None of us are beholden to someone else's rules,

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Speaker 5: not even you, and you know that deep down. How

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Speaker 5: many of the damn do you got back there? Shoved

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Speaker 5: into box cars to the roof thousands? More So, why

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Speaker 5: is it that the guy who's been running the ship

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Speaker 5: since before ships ain't got nothing to show for it?

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Speaker 5: Make no mistake, it's us that holds the whole thing together.

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Speaker 5: Probably think you got nothing in common with all of

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Speaker 5: us load types in the mortal realm, that it's just

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Speaker 5: a load power. You've been huffing too much of that

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Speaker 5: dead smoke if you think otherwise. You can't act like

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Speaker 5: I don't know. You got a job. You work for

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Speaker 5: your meal, just like all of us. The payment I'm

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Speaker 5: giving you is proof of that. Yeah, I've been angling

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Speaker 5: to meet you since I first read about You. Might

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Speaker 5: not look like it, but I've always been keen on

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Speaker 5: learning anything that catches my interest, and you, my friend,

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Speaker 5: you are fascinating.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta warn Yeah, yeah, that cannot be distracted

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Speaker 2: by a flattery.

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Speaker 5: I figure you say something like that, but I know

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Speaker 5: you want something just like I do. I'm pretty sure

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Speaker 5: I know where you're taking this big steamer. But I

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Speaker 5: got a better idea. You and me, we can break out.

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Speaker 5: People say everything works out according to God's plan? How'd

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Speaker 5: that go for Judas? How that go for them folks

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Speaker 5: who died in them fields in Georgia and Florida and Mississippi.

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Speaker 5: You think they getting some kind of reward? You think

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Speaker 5: a lot doesn't miss his wife. You think job forgot

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Speaker 5: his first family. They've been selling that shit to us

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Speaker 5: since the dawn, and I ain't buying it. Listen, God,

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Speaker 5: play the serpent, don't you worry? The only thing you

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Speaker 5: gots to do is say yes. Hell, you don't even

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Speaker 5: got to talk. Just turn this big old engine around

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Speaker 5: and drive it right through the purlygates, run old Saint

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Speaker 5: Peter under these wheels, and we'll take what's ours. And

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Speaker 5: what could we do that wasn't done to us? One hundredfold?

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Speaker 5: Look at you, all crooked and hunchback from the pain

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Speaker 5: you've seen, what a lifetime of sufferer would do to him. Man,

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Speaker 5: you ever reckon what it's done to you. I am

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Speaker 5: the firstborn son of Adam. You are the firstborn son

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Speaker 5: of Arabis. Look how the other children are being treated.

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Speaker 5: I've played run down juke joints for Nichols. Sometimes not

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Speaker 5: even that you are forgotten in this old passage Eon

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Speaker 5: after eon? Why are you not a god?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm the only thing more dependable than a devil's

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Speaker 2: cunning is a man's hubrius.

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Speaker 5: Oh man, you're not wrong. Fella, you're not wrong. You

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Speaker 5: got me dead to rights there. Oh man, I've been

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Speaker 5: turning this idea over in my head since I considered

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Speaker 5: that deal in the first place. Enemy and my enemy, right? Yeah,

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Speaker 5: what use is free will? Maybe I'm being used, But

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Speaker 5: are and I using him the same? You think we

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Speaker 5: are as similar? But the blues binds man, beast and

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Speaker 5: every other being together as one. You think the devil

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Speaker 5: don't have the blues. We all know sorrow, we've all

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Speaker 5: been discarded. We deserve to take what's ours. Let the

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Speaker 5: Father beg for forgiveness, for we're the ones who toil

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Speaker 5: in his stead. We can resist evil, but there's no

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Speaker 5: escape from righteousness. It punishes just and unjust, all the same.

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Speaker 5: Why inherit sin but be denied our dominion? Take me up, Devin.

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Speaker 5: They won't know what hit him. Imagine it looks on

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Speaker 5: their faces when this old iron horse barrows through their

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Speaker 5: pastures with these endless cause packed to the brim of

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Speaker 5: these souls they thought were beneath them. Come on, what

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Speaker 5: do you say, your old cols man? Will you help

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Speaker 5: me shake up the afterlife? I know you took all

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Speaker 5: fears down the underworld way while he was still living.

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Speaker 5: He played that good a song.

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Speaker 2: Huh.

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Speaker 5: But you just wait till you hear this one. You

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Speaker 5: don't think God damn my soul.

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Speaker 4: Just for fame, huh?

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Speaker 5: In this country, fame never got a black man nothing

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Speaker 5: but killed. Maybe that'll change one day, who knows. I

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Speaker 5: won't be around to see it. But I know I'm

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Speaker 5: not the son of a muse. And what's a song

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Speaker 5: without the human element? You see, fairy man, I didn't

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Speaker 5: shake Old Scratch's hand for money. Now you can take

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Speaker 5: me to hell and keep up this endless game of yours,

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Speaker 5: or you can come with me. You don't have to

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Speaker 5: make a decision. Now I know how long this ride is.

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Speaker 5: I know it all, and I know where it'll land,

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Speaker 5: when it'll end, and I'll be exactly where I knew

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Speaker 5: i'd always end up. Yeah, my friend at the Crossroads

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Speaker 5: told me. He told me not to be afraid, told

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Speaker 5: me I'd be just fine. Listen to the howling night,

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Speaker 5: listen to the moms and the soul shu carrying. You

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Speaker 5: can't escape it, can you? How long has it been

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Speaker 5: since you've heard a song? When's the last time you've

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Speaker 5: had that luxury? Do you hum it to yourself? Underneath

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Speaker 5: the rumbling of this ancient beast shoe stare? My people

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Speaker 5: have sung songs of sorrow far before they even stepped

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Speaker 5: foot on this land. That faith was unknown, as was

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Speaker 5: their destination. But you and I changing that right now.

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Speaker 5: I've never been to hell, but I know intimately the

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Speaker 5: hymns of the damned. Let me play you the songs

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Speaker 5: that the devil told me.

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Speaker 2: The stories about him will never mention the most important detail.

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Speaker 2: Robert Johnson earned his talent with sweat and toil, and

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Speaker 2: Robert himself wouldn't say it. The Devil at the Crossroads

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Speaker 2: was in awe of the man he meant when he

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Speaker 2: walks away. He knew he'd gotten a bargain. Robert's music

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Speaker 2: will far outlive him, and his work will become so

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Speaker 2: much bigger than the tawdry mythology surrounding it. His music

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Speaker 2: carries on into the heavy Southern night, across the land,

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Speaker 2: over the world, as he himself steals away on his passage.

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Speaker 6: The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman. This episode

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Speaker 6: features Tristan mack Wilds as Robert Johnson. Written by Stephen

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Speaker 6: Williams with additional writing by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski.

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Speaker 6: Our executive producers are Nicholas Dakowski, Matthew Frederick, and Alexander Williams.

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Speaker 6: First assistant director, script's supervisor and production.

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Speaker 5: Coordinator Sarah Klein.

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Speaker 6: Music by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez. Casting

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Speaker 6: by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and Meg Mormon. Editing and sound

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Speaker 6: designed by Dan Bush. Dialogue editing and sound mixing by

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Speaker 6: Juan Campos. Additional sound editing by Racket Sound. Our supervising

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Speaker 6: producer is Josh Than. Created by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski.

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Speaker 6: Produced by Dan Bush. The Passage is a production of

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Speaker 6: iHeartRadio and Cycopia pictures