I was walking by the graveyard late last Friday night
I heard somebody yelling, it sounded like a fight
It was just a drunken hobo dancing circles in the night
Pouring whiskey on the headstones in the blue moonlight
So often have I wondered where these homeless brothers go
Down into some hidden valley where their sorrows cannot show
Where the police cannot find them, where the wanted man can go
There's freedom when you're walking, even though you're walking slow
Smash your bottle on a gravestone and live while you can
That homeless brother is my friend
It's hard to be a pack rat, it's hard to be a 'bo
But living's so much harder where the heartless people go
Somewhere the dogs are barking and the children seem to know
That Jesus on the highway was a lost hobo
And they hear the holy silence of the temples in the hill
And they see the ragged tatters as another kind of frill
And they envy him the sunshine and they pity him the chill
And they're sad to do their living for some other kind of thrill
Smash your bottle on a gravestone and live while you can
That homeless brother is my friend
Somewhere there was a woman, somewhere there was a child
Somewhere there was a cottage where the marigolds grew wild
But somewhere's just like nowhere when you leave it for a while
You'll find the brokenhearted when you're traveling jungle style
Down the bowels of a broken land where numbers live like men
Where those who keep their senses have them taken back again
Where the nightstick cracks with crazy rage, where madmen don't pretend
Where wealth has no beginning and poverty no end
Smash your bottle on a gravestone and live while you can
That homeless brother is my friend
The ghosts of highway royalty have vanished in the night
The Whitman wanderer walking toward a glowing inner light
The children have grown older and the cops have gripped us tight
There's no spot 'round the melting pot for free men in their flight
And you who live on promises and prosper as you please
The victim of your riches often dies of your disease
He can't hear the factory whistle, just the lonesome freight train's wheeze
He's living on good fortune, he ain't dying on his knees
Smash your bottle on a gravestone and live while you can
That homeless brother is my friend
That homeless brother is my friend
****
I heard somebody yelling, it sounded like a fight
It was just a drunken hobo dancing circles in the night
Pouring whiskey on the headstones in the blue moonlight
So often have I wondered where these homeless brothers go
Down into some hidden valley where their sorrows cannot show
Where the police cannot find them, where the wanted man can go
There's freedom when you're walking, even though you're walking slow
Smash your bottle on a gravestone and live while you can
That homeless brother is my friend
It's hard to be a pack rat, it's hard to be a 'bo
But living's so much harder where the heartless people go
Somewhere the dogs are barking and the children seem to know
That Jesus on the highway was a lost hobo
And they hear the holy silence of the temples in the hill
And they see the ragged tatters as another kind of frill
And they envy him the sunshine and they pity him the chill
And they're sad to do their living for some other kind of thrill
Smash your bottle on a gravestone and live while you can
That homeless brother is my friend
Somewhere there was a woman, somewhere there was a child
Somewhere there was a cottage where the marigolds grew wild
But somewhere's just like nowhere when you leave it for a while
You'll find the brokenhearted when you're traveling jungle style
Down the bowels of a broken land where numbers live like men
Where those who keep their senses have them taken back again
Where the nightstick cracks with crazy rage, where madmen don't pretend
Where wealth has no beginning and poverty no end
Smash your bottle on a gravestone and live while you can
That homeless brother is my friend
The ghosts of highway royalty have vanished in the night
The Whitman wanderer walking toward a glowing inner light
The children have grown older and the cops have gripped us tight
There's no spot 'round the melting pot for free men in their flight
And you who live on promises and prosper as you please
The victim of your riches often dies of your disease
He can't hear the factory whistle, just the lonesome freight train's wheeze
He's living on good fortune, he ain't dying on his knees
Smash your bottle on a gravestone and live while you can
That homeless brother is my friend
That homeless brother is my friend
****
Contributed by Pluck - 2024/8/9 - 20:40
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The story of a song: Homeless Brother - Don McLean
https://radio.callmefred.com/en/song_story/homeless-brother-don-mclean/