Lyric of the day: Steve Earle's "Billy Austin"

It takes a few listens, normally, to begin to hear the writer's intent and begin to like a song.

There are a few songs, however, that are first-listen likes. I can recall some: Lucinda Williams' "Bus to Baton Rouge," Bruce Springsteen's "Paradise" and Todd Snider's "You Think You Know Somebody" were drive-off-the-road good on first listens.

Here's another one that still gives me chills when I hear it, Steve Earle's "Billy Austin."

Earle is a death penalty opponent. (My faith as a Catholic teaches that life is sacred from conception to natural death and calls for me to oppose both abortion and the death penalty.) I respect -- as I do people's rights to make up their own minds about these issues -- Earle's writing and activism, which includes great sensitivity to victim's families. I've covered four executions in my newspaper career and almost witnessed one in Ohio that would have taken place in the electric chair. The convicted man, John Byrd, was spared then by an 11th-hour U.S. Supreme Court ruling but later died by lethal injection.

I spent a great deal of time with and interviewing the families of the two victims of what became known as the Steak and Ale murders in Winston-Salem, N.C., when I wrote for the News & Observer of Raleigh in the early 1990s.

The older I get I find there are no easy answers; few, if any, absolutes.

"Billy Austin" is a stunning Earle story song about a condemned man. Earle sings to guitar and light percussion:

"Now my waitin's over
As the final hour drags by
I ain't about to tell you
That I don't deserve to die

"But there's twenty-seven men here
Mostly black, brown and poor
Most of em are guilty
Who are you to say for sure?

"So when the preacher comes to get me
And they shave off all my hair
Could you take that long walk with me
Knowing hell is waitin' there

"Could you pull that switch yourself sir
With a sure and steady hand
Could you still tell youself
That you're better than I am"