(Alexander/Naydock)
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He was the king of the back seat
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Of drunk reverie
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Saw him escorted out of a Mets game
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On network T.V.
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Kept his head in the clouds
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With any cheap high he could cull
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In his cancered Impala
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And his hog shirts
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And his head tapes played dull
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He lived in a company house
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In the Pardeesville woods
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With a stir crazy dog
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And a graveyard of old "Jimmy" hoods
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Sundays we'd run for his stash
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At the New York state line
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That summer when moments of
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Circumstance altered like wine
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(Chorus)
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This is for the man
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This is for the days that we killed
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Was it my wind of change
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Or just a breeze at the top of the hill
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He didn't talk the gold ring
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He just schemed for a skeleton key
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But when you think you met thunder
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You only see what your head wants to see
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He threw back-mountain parties
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Five deep at the "well"
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With his girlfriend, Louise, who'd get lit
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And tell us all "go to hell"
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Then he'd get liquored up
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And throw me the keys and yell "drive"
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With him and Louise in the back
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Doin' "American Pie"
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He'd talk of out west over beer
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And the garbage that we ate
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'Bout the punk band he'd managed
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In Phoenix in '78
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I was this kid of sixteen the enamored
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Impressionable kind
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In the poetic pull of the passion
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Of life with the lines
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(Chorus)
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He just disappeared that mid-August
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Not even a shout
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Then I read in the news that September
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That his time had run out
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How he tried to outrun a state trooper
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Down 93 South
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A charge of possession is why he fled
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Said word of mouth
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The paper said nothin' was left
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But the seats and the frame
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And I read in the write-up
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For the first time his real name;
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Birthplace unknown, not from nowhere
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No close family
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Just a wild river running
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That cut it too fast to the sea
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I still raise a glass once a year
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On the night that he died
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Though hindsight says
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He only let me believe that we'd ride
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Lord, he still taps a vein in my mind
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Like a summer rain cools
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Long after that river ran dry
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And reality ruled
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(Chorus2x)
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-----------------
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Song For A River
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The Badlees |