everybody knows rock stars get to drink do drugs have sex with groupies
everybody knows addiction is as fundamental as learning the fret board
everybody knows pills and a bottle beside a 27year old singer is actuarial
everybody knows for every aging Keith there are a hundred dead Jimmies
everybody knows playing a different town every night is a human toll road

so rock and roll is popular with soldiers on the battle front
so music is the last to go when a teenager turns out the lights forever
so they call it Death Metal Black Sabbath The Grateful Dead
so people who by sheer luck make it long enough to be parents forbid rap
so years of a wall of Marshalls on 10 will replace hearing with tinnitus

just an old hippy ranting about Woodstock over and over
just the kind of thing nobody wants to hear about… nobody
just a voice in the wilderness one hand clapping on the dark side of the moon
just a way to rub shoulders with death and get used to the idea
just a lost dog trying to pick up the trail on a four-lane highway