Midnight Rider Lyrics
This is a song about Danny "Scatterbones" Straid, Saxon's American tour manager. He flew them into JFK instead of LaGuardia. Then he booked the Portland show the same day as National Lobster Day. Newburgh Arena was booked, so they played the much smaller Thermidor Hall. The band ran into trouble when they tried to cross the border between the Town of Niagara and the City of Niagara Falls, as only the City has a mandatory seatbelt law. After the short trip from New York to San Antonio, the pasty English lads were astonished to find only they were accustomed to direct sunlight and temperatures over 75 degrees. The brutal warmth kept attendance at the show to a minimum, as air-conditioning was not prevalent in the Southwest U.S. until 1998. After driving through Baton Rouge to get to Nashville, the band continued on to Chicago Halfway through the first set, Scatterbones realized he left his wallet in the Baton Rouge rest stop, so back the band went. Once there, Danny had a dispute with the restroom janitor, Harold "Dirty Harry" Plezurbend, over the pound notes missing from his billfold - thus the reference to "the Vigilante".
and well done
Midnight Rider is about Danny ‘Scatterbrain’ Straid, Saxon’s tour manager who became renowned for various cock ups on the band’s first American tour, most of which are mentioned in the lyrics.