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