There’s a road
stretched out between us
Like a ribbon on the high plain
Down from Phoenix through Salinas
'Round the bend and back again.
By the time I get to Phoenix she’ll be rising,
She’ll find the note I left hangin’ on her door,
She’ll laugh when she reads the part that says I’m leavin’,
'Cause I’ve left that girl so many times before.
Babe, I’m gonna leave you
Oh, baby, you know, I’ve really got to leave you
Oh I can hear it callin ‘me
I said don’t you hear it callin’ me the way it used to do?
Babe I’m leaving,
I must be on my way,
The time is drawing near…
Time has come today
Young hearts can go their way
Can’t put it off another day
I don’t care what others say
They say we don’t listen anyway
Time has come today
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say
Paperback writer, paperback writer
Dear Sir or Madame will you read my book,
It took me years to write, will you take a look.
Now Paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he’s talking with Davy, who’s still in the Navy
And probably will be for life
In the navy
Yes, you can sail the seven seas
In the navy
Yes, you can put your mind at ease
In the navy
Come on now, people, make a stand
In the navy, in the navy
Anchors Aweigh, my boys,
Anchors Aweigh.
Farewell to foreign shores,
We sail at break of day-ay-ay-ay.
Through our last night ashore,
Drink to the foam,
Until we meet once more.
Here’s wishing you a happy voyage home.
Outward bound, upon a journey without ending,
Outward bound, uncharted waters beneath our bow
Far behind, the green familiar shore is fading
Into time, and time has left us now.
Down the lane I walk with my sweet Mary, hair of gold and lips like cherries,
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they’ll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly,
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Down our long dusty driveway
This time we both would go
He had grown old and grey and his mind was wanderin’
Daddy took me by the hand
Said I know where we’re going and I understand
Don’t worry boy, it will be all right
Boy you gotta carry that weight
A long time…
I read a note my grandma wrote, back in 1923,
Grandpa kept it in his coat, and he showed it once to me,
He said, “Boy, you might not understand, but a long, long time ago,
Grandma’s daddy didn’t like me none, but I loved your grandma so.”
Take a letter Maria
Address it to my wife…
Sweet Maria,
The sunlight surely hurts my eyes,
I’m a lonely dreamer,
On a highway in the skies…
sniff
The letter I found wrinkled and yellowed from years sitting in some cardboard box
And what advice to give your son? You said, ‘‘Do what you think is right.
In life you can never go wrong.’’
When Adrien James left Marie and son
One third of the whole was gone
Just in case anybody is wondering, my quote was from “Love, Me” by Collin Raye, a country song from back in about 1991 or so. I heard it for the first time in a country bar back then, and everybody suddenly got something in their eye, all at the same time. Must have been the cigarette smoke–yeah, that’s it, the cigarette smoke. 
Next:
Reuben James,
In my song you live again,
And the phrases that I rhyme,
Are just the footsteps out of time,
From the time when I knew you, Reuben James.
Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
I somehow find
You and I collide