Somebody said they heard he was coming
Someone saw the Goat Man on old forty-one
Riding upon an old rickety relic
Behind thirty goats, beneath the hot Georgia sun.

When word got around, the townspeople gathered
Schoolchildren poured out the windows and doors
Nothing could stop 'em, nobody could keep 'em
They'd never seen anything like him before.

Goats in the wagon and goats in the harness
Goat's milk for sale if you had a dime.
Trinkets and treasures jingled around him
He twirled through the world a town at a time.

At fourteen he ran off and married a lady
A Spanish knife thrower, aged twenty-four
First came The Depression, then came a baby
But Ches McCartney kept the wolves from the door.

One day at work, a tree fell upon him
He lay there for hours, till someone arrived
They said he was dead, covered his body
But before he was buried, they found him alive.

From that day forward, Ches started preaching
He told about how he came back from the dead
As long as he lived, he talked about Jesus
And gave Him the glory in all that he said.

Goats in the wagon and goats in the harness
Goat's milk for sale if you had a dime.
Trinkets and treasures jingled around him
He twirled through the world a town at a time.

Most folks loved for the Goat Man to visit
And towns shut down to watch him go through
But one time in Tennessee, devils, they beat him
Killed all his goats, and broke his heart too.

That was Ches's last trip as the Goat Man
He wandered alone for a few years more
He lingered here till he reached ninety-seven
Now he rides with his goats on that heavenly shore.

Somebody said they heard he was coming
Someone saw the Goat Man on old forty-one
Riding upon an old rickety relic
Behind thirty goats, beneath the hot Georgia sun

Goats in the wagon and goats in the harness
Goat's milk for sale if you had a dime.
Trinkets and treasures jingled around him
He twirled through the world a town at a time.

***************************
Original song. Probably not completely accurate, but based on the popular story I always heard about Ches McCartney. I searched the Internet for pictures and found these posted by folks who caught him on film when he passed through their towns. I remember him coming through my town quite a few times when I was growing up here in Georgia in the fifties and sixties. Lots of great stories....
I found the following account on the Internet. It was not signed, but it captures perfectly the excitement we felt when the Goatman passed through our town...

"Oh yeah, the Goatman was big as Elvis in the rural south back in the day. Someone mentioned above about them closing the schools down...the teachers never had a choice when it came to the Goatman. I can remember somebody running up old college street one spring day, next to the elementary school, a screaming like a maniac that the Goatman was coming up hwy 41. About 90% of the kids in that school went out the windows that instance, the other 10% out the doors and commenced to running around hollering and gnashing their teeth like they was possessed "Goatman!! He's coming!!! Goatman!!!"

It made us kids crazy like dope or something, I reckon cause we didn't have much for tv or none of them video games back then, it just didn't take much to set us off. All we could think of was the Goatman from that point till weeks after he done left, trying to school any of us was useless right after he passed thru. I figure it was a good thing he came thru town in the late spring or we'd all ended up heathens or democrats or something?

I remember that year primarily because of the whooping I got when my third grade teacher, Ms Hopper showed up at the house that night to give my Granny the shirt she had pulled offa me whilst trying to hold me back from jumping out of the second floor window of the school house. Well at least she kept me from landing directly on my head....I think? "

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