Song For A River - Badlees

he was the king of the back seat 
of drunk reverie 
saw him escorted out of a mets game 
on network t.v. 
kept his head in the clouds 
with any cheap high he could cull 
in his cancered impala 
and his hog shirts 
and his head tapes played dull 
he lived in a company house 
in the pardeesville woods 
with a stir crazy dog 
and a graveyard of old "jimmy" hoods 
sundays we'd run for his stash 
at the new york state line 
that summer when moments of 
circumstance altered like wine 
CHORUS 
this is for the man 
this is for the days that we killed 
was it my wind of change 
or just a breeze at the top of the hill 
he didn't talk the gold ring 
he just schemed for a skeleton key 
but when you think you met thunder 
you only see what your head wants to see 
he threw back-mountain parties 
five deep at the "well" 
with his girlfriend, louise, who'd get lit 
and tell us all "go to hell" 
then he'd get liquored up 
and throw me his keys and yell "drive" 
with him and louise in the back 
doin' "american pie" 
he'd talk of out west over beer 
and the garbage that we ate 
'bout the punk band he'd managed 
in phoenix in '78 
i was this kid of sixteen the enamored 
impressionable kind 
in the poetic pull of the passion 
of life with the lines 
CHORUS 
he just disappeared that mid-august 
not even a shout 
then i read in the news that september 
that his time had run out 
how he tried to outrun a state trooper 
down 93 south 
a charge of possession is why he fled 
said word of mouth 
the paper said nothin' was left 
but the seats and the frame 
and i read in the write-up 
for the first time his real name; 
birthplace unknown, not from nowhere 
no close family 
just a wild running river 
that cut it too fast to the sea 
i still raise a glass once a year 
on the night that he died 
though hindsight says 
he only let me believe that we'd ride 
lord, he still taps a vein in my mind 
like a summer rain cools 
long after that river ran dry 
and reality ruled 
CHORUS 2X