Harry Chapin Quotes

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 the broad who served the whisky She was a big old friendly girl. And she tried to fight her empty nights By smilin' at the world.

And I know you're frightened By my laughter But you're not afraid To hold my pain You see I'm never sure Just what you're after, Babe But it seems you only love me When it rains. How come you only love me when it rains?

She was married for seven years to a concrete castle king. She said she wanted to learn to play the guitar and to hear her children sing. So I'd show up about once a week in my faded tight-legged jeans with a backlog full of hobo stories and dilapidated dreams.

And so I'd dream a bass will join me, and fill the bottom in. And maybe now some lead guitar so it would not sound so thin. I need some drums to set the beat and help me keep in time. And way back in the distance, some strings would sound so fine.

Oh God they got you gun shy You know your skin's as cold as ice Your eyes are double filtered babe You're so afraid to be nice There's no way you're ready To let your defenses down Though I won't come on heavy There is a lesson that I've found.

That's when I asked her where was that actress She said "That was somebody else" And then I asked her why she looked so happy now She said "I finally like myself, at last I like myself."

"The rock is gonna fall on us," he stood and told the class The professor put his chalk down and peered out through his glasses But he went on and said; "I've seen it, high up on the hill If it doesn't fall this year then very soon it will!"

We've more important studies than your fantasies and fears You know that rock's been perched up there for a hundred thousand years.

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?

But there still must be a way to have our children say... "There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flower and I see every one." (Live version)

Now sometimes words can serve me well Sometimes words can go to hell For all that they do. And for every dream that took me high There's been a dream that's passed me by. I know it's so true And I can see it clear out to the end And I'll whisper to her now again Because she shared my life. For more than all the ghosts of glory She makes up the story, She's the only story Of my life.

It’s got to be the going not the getting there that’s good

He was a young driver, just out on his second job. And he was carrying the next day's pasty fruits for everyone in that coal-scarred city where children play without despair in backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day about thirty thousand pounds of bananas...

I was quite surprised to find out all the places that he knew And so I asked the townfolk if his stories were true They said— Old John was born here, he's lived here all his life He's never had a woman, let alone a wife. And very soon you'll find out as you check around That no one named Corey's ever lived in this town So I chided the old man 'bout the truth that I had heard He smiled and said— Reality is only just a word.