Hear My Train A'Comin

Been blue for way too long,
(stuck in this ol Yankee town,)
try as I might things they go wrong;
though I try to do right and be a good friend,
in the end 'most every one lets me down.

Life has rarely been easy for me,
but between harrowing nights,
I've seen free days in the sun:
enlightening reading, beautiful women,
Epicurean feasts, and sweet green woods.

And in good and bad times,
still tried to learn bout this earth we share,
still cared bout the stories of earthy, working folk,
and still took the time to write bardic lines,
doing what I could to help others
like so many others helped me.

But times are changin, hear,
times are changin;
there's plenty around here'd like to see me hangin'
for my plenteous crimes against their sick, greedy ways

So like the late Jimmy Hendrix: "I been hangin round the train station,
waitin for that train,"
and just in time:
"I hear my train a'comin!,
I hear my train a'comin!!"

Yeah, tell you the truth,
whether or not my ears lie,
I still gonna leave this lonesome town...
still gonna take the immortal ride.

Oh yeah, I've been damned insane,
but soon I gonna jump that enlightened train
like a Bohemian acrobat
and join that Dharma bum Kerouac,
the fantastic Shakespeare, Johnson, and Marley,
that brilliantly melodic cat Bob Marley,
Dylan and Lennon,
Mozart and Nilsson,
Gueverra and Trotsky,
Neruda and Sublime's Bradley,
philosophy's Epicurus and Nietzche,
and of course "pass the paper bag" Willie Nelson;

yeah, I been sad, been bad, even been insane,
but I've earned my spot on that wondrous bus:
let fools and villains deny it till they blue in the face
cause it don't change nothin';

I been blue for a while,
but, friends, it's my day to smile,
cause it looks like I'm gonna be rewarded for my worth
right here on this fastly changing, beautiful earth,
but it's all right however it falls out
cause I ain't got the slightest doubt:

I hear my train a'comin,
comin to set me free,
and whether I'm dead or alive,
my ship, my train, it gonna arrive,
and me and mine are going to ride
on the gravy train of humaternity:

yeah, folks, I tell ya it's comin',
for different riders at different times,
but it ain't heaven sent
and if you don't hear past this noisy, wicked society's din:

you'll never hear the joy of your free train a'comin