lights went out in Geoorgia

A young woman tells the story of her older unnamed brother who returns home after a two-week trip from a place called "Candletop." The brother meets his best friend, Andy Wolloe, at Webb's Bar ("Andy Wolloe said hello, and he said, 'Hi, what's doing, Wo?'"), and Andy informs the brother that his young wife (who is later described as "cheatin'") has been seeing another man in town, Seth Amos. Andy then reveals that he, too, has been sleeping with his friend's wife. The brother is understandably upset, which scares Andy, who leaves and walks home. The brother assumes his wife has left town, gets his gun, and heads out to the back woods to sneak up on Andy and confront him. When the brother arrives at Andy's house, he finds tracks outside ("tracks that were too small for Andy to make") and discovers that someone has already killed Andy. The brother, in a moment of panic ("he started to shake"), fires his gun in the air to summon a passing sheriff. When the sheriff approaches the scene, the brother is immediately accused of murder. A "backwoods Southern lawyer" doesn't keep the sheriff and a judge from convicting the brother in a kangaroo court ("the judge said 'guilty' in a make-believe trial / slapped the sheriff on the back with a smile"), and hang him that same night, effectively lynching him - which was apparently the same night of a statewide electrical blackout.

In the final verse, the singer then reveals that she was the one who killed Andy and that she had also previously killed her promiscuous sister-in-law and disposed of her body ("one body that'll never be found"), and that her brother was lynched before there was a chance to tell anyone the truth.