I′m oft alone, I'm rarely lonely

The open road′s my one and only

The nightly cold comes on so fast

True love truly doesn't last

I squeezed to make it cry or sing

Got the song, I lost the thing

It's hard to think of frost when flowers bloom

But at least the daffodils hang down

Wear an almost human frown

How that trouble chases me from room to loving room!

They said progress was a fact of earth

That rhetoric′s as dumb as dirt

I don′t want to work a dead end job!

Penny saved, a penny lost

So I'll owe no one, no one′ll owe me

Shake my hand and set me free

I cannot force a man to mind his word

They said, won't you take it easy, son?

The war is over, rich folks won

But I got lucky, I stayed raw, I held glory in my paw

When I met a mule named Beauty

In the state of old Missouri

And a donkey named Winged Victory

In the state of Arkansas!

I believe in the impossible

That no one is expendable

And written large in every ache and pain

Is us growing hard or soft as we can get

Growing equal, growing opposite

Our memory grows bigger every livelong ding-dong day

So I won′t swear a blessing, I'll swear a curse

It won′t get better till it gets worse

One hand might wash the other in the blood of martyrdom

So what is to become of us?

Bones will break and guns will rust

And if you get satisfaction now

You won't in kingdom come

So it's old cold meds and coffee black

Seeds and stems and potholes back

To places that won′t let me call them home

The old Bojangle, the old soft shoe

Leave tendons for the wrecking crew

But I sang to the dementia ward

And the old folks all sang back

I sang to the dementia ward

And the bastards all sang back!