Lost Music: Sneaking Up On Boo Radley (Bruce Hornsby)

Remembering Forgotten Songs!

Bruce Hornsby

Sneaking Up On Boo Radley

Crawl up the back steps
Up to the back door
Reach up in the dark
Turn the handle a little more
Open up real slow
So the door won't creak
Look ahead, look behind
Don't shuffle your feet

Hey - They say he's crazy, they say he's gone
We play our tricks, make up funny songs
Sneaking around, feeling badly
Sneaking up on Boo Radley

Hear the caterpillar crawl
Hear the bedbugs bite
Hear the crickets scream
All the sounds of the night
Hear the sound of footprints
On the ground I think I see
Don't step on the lightning bugs
Watch the crack in your knees

They say he's crazy, they say he's gone
We play our tricks, make up funny songs
Sneaking around, feeling badly
Sneaking up on Boo Radley

They say he's funny, got a loose screw
Stay away, he's a threat to you
Give him a break, what do we know
Might turn out we would like him so
We fear what we just don't know

I heard he served a long time ago
Saw some things we'll never know
We laugh and sneak around in the night
Fun and games but I know it's not right

Both scared and fascinated
Ignorant we castigate him
Both scared and fascinated
Ignorant we flagellate him

They say he's crazy, they say he's gone
We play our tricks, make up funny songs
Down the street, walking sadly
My little sister, loves him madly
I'm feeling like the Man From Gladly
Sneaking up on Boo Radley
Sneaking up on Boo Radley

Sneaking Up On Boo Radley is a track on Bruce Hornsby's Spirit Trail album. The song was obviously inspired by Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird. One of the things I like the most about this particular track is that Hornsby employs some tasty imagery featuring the kids creeping around the Radley house, trying to catch a brief glimpse of the mysterious Boo Radley.