Post by beren44 on Apr 15, 2017 13:52:37 GMT
As can be found on Wiki, this song, from 'Tres Hombres', is also based on life events. What nut-cases those guys are. I played in a band in my college years, with a fellow guitarist who grew up with them, just south of Houston down highway 6, in a town named Sugarland. (its now surburbia, Houston has swallowed it up, but back then it was just a dinky town surrounded by rice farms, and lots of cows, along with lots of cow-patties, and prime conditions for various types of 'fungi' to grow, if you know what I mean. No wonder those guys were so crazy!)
The 'Master-of-Sparks' was indeed a spherical steel cage, with a seat hung inside, suspended by parachute straps. As the following highlights from the lyrics indicate, they used to load the thing into the back of a pickup truck, with someone inside, and roll them out of the bed of the truck, going 60 MPH. Hence the name. The fun finally came to an end, when the ball went off the highway, got tangled up with and basically ate a long stretch of barbed-wire fence, and the guy inside got cut up pretty severely.
Master Of Sparks by ZZ Top:
High class Slim came floatin' in
Down from the county line.
Just gettin' right on Saturday night,
Ridin' with some friends of mine.
They invited me just to come and see
Just what was on their minds
And then I took my first long look
At the Master of Sparks on high.
In the back of Jimmy's Mack
Stood a round steel cage
Welded into shape by Slim,
Made out of sucker gauge.
How fine, they cried, now with you inside,
Strapped in there safe and sound.
I thought, my-o-my, how the sparks will fly
If that thing ever hit the ground.
Slim was so pleased when I had eased
Into his trap of death.
He had slammed the door but I said no more
And I thought I'd breathed my last breath.
We was out in the sticks down Highway Six
And the crowd was just about right.
The speed was too, so out I flew
Like a stick of rollin' dynamite.
When I hit the ground you could hear the sound
And see the sparks a country mile.
End over end I began to spin
But the ball started runnin' wild.
But it was too late as I met my fate
And the ball started gettin' hot.
But through the sparks and the flame I knew that the claim
Of the Master of Sparks was gone.
The 'Master-of-Sparks' was indeed a spherical steel cage, with a seat hung inside, suspended by parachute straps. As the following highlights from the lyrics indicate, they used to load the thing into the back of a pickup truck, with someone inside, and roll them out of the bed of the truck, going 60 MPH. Hence the name. The fun finally came to an end, when the ball went off the highway, got tangled up with and basically ate a long stretch of barbed-wire fence, and the guy inside got cut up pretty severely.
Master Of Sparks by ZZ Top:
High class Slim came floatin' in
Down from the county line.
Just gettin' right on Saturday night,
Ridin' with some friends of mine.
They invited me just to come and see
Just what was on their minds
And then I took my first long look
At the Master of Sparks on high.
In the back of Jimmy's Mack
Stood a round steel cage
Welded into shape by Slim,
Made out of sucker gauge.
How fine, they cried, now with you inside,
Strapped in there safe and sound.
I thought, my-o-my, how the sparks will fly
If that thing ever hit the ground.
Slim was so pleased when I had eased
Into his trap of death.
He had slammed the door but I said no more
And I thought I'd breathed my last breath.
We was out in the sticks down Highway Six
And the crowd was just about right.
The speed was too, so out I flew
Like a stick of rollin' dynamite.
When I hit the ground you could hear the sound
And see the sparks a country mile.
End over end I began to spin
But the ball started runnin' wild.
But it was too late as I met my fate
And the ball started gettin' hot.
But through the sparks and the flame I knew that the claim
Of the Master of Sparks was gone.
