When I was young

I watched the cars

When I was older

I drank in bars

When I was young

I chewed the leaves

When I was older

I drank with thieves

I found a love

She gave me dreams

She left me drunk

In New Orleans

So cold and lonely

So all alone

I wished my heart

Was made of stone

I took the cold bright needle

I used it as a sword

My eyes have seen the glory of

The coming of the Lord

I burned across the delta

I swam across the ford

My eyes have seen the glory of

The coming of the Lord

When I was a young man

Standing on this road

My empty belly

An aching hole

An old man said to me

"Kid don't you know

That it's the same

Wherever you go"



I gambled in two graveyards

I won against the odds

With the smiling saints

And the silent saviours

With the maggots and the gods


I cursed the things they showed me

I could never see again

And the howling of the wind at night

I wrote upon the rain



I found the thing

For which I prayed

And came back home

To the USA

With a heart of stone

And now I know

That it's the same

Wherever you go