|
|
|
- 390,488 lyrics
- 24,313 artists
|
|
|
Viewing Lyrics for There Only Was One Choice:
| | | Artist: | Chapin Harry |
| | Album: | unknow | | Track: | There Only Was One Choice | | | | Date Added: | 18/10/2007 | | Views: | 55 | | | | Lyrics: | There Only Was One Choice
by
Harry Chapin
There's a kid out on my corner -- hear him strumming like a
fool
Shivering in his dungarees -- but still he's going to school
His cheeks are made of
peach fuzz -- his hopes may be the same
But he's signed up as a soldier out to play the music
game
There are fake patches on his jacket -- he's used bleach to fade his jeans
With
a brand new stay pressed shirt -- and some creased and wrinkled dreams
His face a blemish
garden -- but his eyes are virgin clear
His voice is Chicken Little's -- But he's hearing Paul
Revere
When he catches himself giggling -- he forces up a sneer
Though he'd rather
have a milkshake -- he keeps forcing down the beer
Just another folkie -- late in coming down
the pike
Riding his guitar -- he left Kid brother with his bike
And he's got Guthrie
running in his bones
He's the hobo kid who's left his home
And his Beatles records and the
Rolling Stones
This boy is staying acoustic
There's Seeger singing in his heart
He
hopes his songs will somehow start
To heal the cracks that split apart
America gone
plastic
And now there's Dylan dripping from his mouth
He's hitching himself way down
south
To learn a little black and blues
From old street men who paid their
dues
'Cause they knew they had nothing to lose
They knew it
So they just got to
it
With cracked old Gibsons and red clay shoes
Playing 1-4-5 chords like good
news
And cursed with skin that calls for blood
They put their face and feet in
mud
But oh they learned the music from way down there
The real ones learn it
somewhere
Strum your guitar -- sing it kid
Just write about your feelings -- not the
things you never did
Inexperience -- it once had cursed me
But your youth is no handicap
-- it's what makes you thirsty
Hey, kid you know you can hear your footsteps as you're
kicking up the dust
And the rustling in the shadows tells you secrets you can trust
The
capturing of whispers is the way to write a song
It's when you get to microphones the music can
go wrong
You can't see the audience with spotlights in your eyes
Your feet can't
feel the highway from where the Lear jet flies
When you glide in silent splendor in your padded
limousines
Only you are crying there behind the silver screen
Now you battle dragons --
but they'll all turn into frogs
When you grab the wheel of fortune -- you get caught up in the
cogs
First your art turns into craft -- then the yahoos start to laugh
Then you'll
hear the jackals howl 'cause they love to watch the fall
They're the lost ones out there
feeding on the wounded and the bleeding
They always are the first to see the cracks upon the
walls
When I started this song I was still thirty-three
The age that Mozart died and
sweet Jesus was set free
Keats and Shelley too soon finished, Charley Parker would be
And
I fantasized some tragedy'd be soon curtailing me
Well just today I had my birthday -- I
made it thirty-four
Mere mortal, not immortal, not star-crossed anymore
I've got this
problem with my aging I no longer can ignore
A tame and toothless tabby can't produce a lion's
roar
And I can't help being frightened on these midnight afternoons
When I ask the
loaded questions -- Why does winter come so soon?
And where are all the golden girls that I was
singing for
The daybreak chorus of my dreams serenades no more
Yeah the minute man
is going soft -- the mirror's on the shelf
Only when the truth's up there -- can you fool
yourself
I am the aged jester -- who won't gracefully retire
A clumsy clown without a net
caught staggering on the high wire
Yesterday's a collar that has settled round my
waist
Today keeps slipping by me, it leaves no aftertaste
Tomorrow is a daydream, the
future's never true
Am I just a fading fire or a breeze passing through?
Hello my
Country
I once came to tell everyone your story
Your passion was my poetry
And your
past my most potent glory
Your promise was my prayer
Your hypocrisy my nightmare
And
your problems fill my present
Are we both going somewhere?
Step right up young lady
-- Your two hundred birthdays make you
old if not senile
And we see the symptoms there
in your rigor mortis smile
With your old folks eating dog food and your children eating
paint
While the pirates own the flag and sell us sermons on restraint
And while
blood's the only language that your deaf old ears can hear
And still you will not answer with
that message coming clear
Does it mean there's no more ripples in your tired old glory
stream
And the buzzards own the carcass of your dream?
B*U*Y Centennial
Sell
'em pre-canned laughter
American Perennial
Sing happy ever after
There's a
Dance Band on the Titanic
Singing Nearer My God to Thee
And the iceberg's on the starboard
bow
Won't you dance with me
Yes I read it in the New York Times
That was on the
stands today
It said that dreams were out of fashion
We'll hear no more empty
promises
There'll be no more wasted passions
To clutter up our play
It really
was a good sign
The words went on to say
It shows that we are growing up
In oh so
many healthy ways
And I told myself this is
Exactly where I'm at
But I don't much
like thinking about that
Harry -- are you really so naive
You can honestly
believe
That the country's getting better
When all you do is let her alone
Harry
-- Can you really be surprised
when it's there before your eyes
when you hold the knife
that carves her
you live the life that starves her to the bone
Good dreams don't
come cheap
You've got to pay for them
If you just dream when you're asleep
There is
no way for them
to come alive
to survive
It's not enough to listen --
it's not enough to see
When the hurricane is coming on it's not enough to flee
It's not
enough to be in love -- we hide behind that word
It's not enough to be alive when your future's
been deferred
What I've run through my body, what I've run through my mind
My
breath's the only rhythm -- and the tempo is my time
My enemy is hopelessness -- my ally honest
doubt
The answer is a question that I never will find out
Is music propaganda --
should I boogie, Rock and Roll
Or just an early warning system hitched up to my soul
Am I
observer or participant or huckster of belief
Making too much of a life so mercifully
brief?
So I stride down sunny streets and the band plays back my song
They're
applauding at my shadow long after I am gone
Should I hold this wistful notion that the journey
is worthwhile
Or tiptoe cross the chasm with a song and a smile
Well I got up this
morning -- I don't need to know no more
It evaporated nightmares that had boiled the night
before
With every new day's dawning my kid climbs in my bed
And tells the cynics of the
board room your language is dead
And as I wander with my music through the jungles of
despair
My kid will learn guitar and find his street corner somewhere
There he'll make the
silence listen to the dream behind the voice
And show his minstrel Hamlet daddy that there only
was one choice
Strum your guitar -- sing it kid
Just write about your feelings --
not the things you never did
Inexperience -- it once had cursed me
But your youth is no
handicap -- it's what makes you thirsty, hey kid
Strum your guitar -- sing it
kid
Just write about your feelings -- not the things you never did
Dance Band | | | |
 Add to del.icio.us
 Digg this
 Reddit
Share on Facebook
|
|
More Chapin Harry Lyrics:
|
| 1. | She Is Always Seventeen view | | 2. | Flowers Are Red view | | 3. | Old Folkie view | | 4. | Odd Job Man view | | 5. | Dirt Gets Under The Fingernails view | | 6. | Shooting Star view | | 7. | What Made America Famous view | | 8. | Star Tripper view | | 9. | Stop Singing These Sad Songs view | | 10. | Taxi view |
|
|
