Hey you, Jack Kerouac
You grew your hair out longer
Just the way I like it
The way that I used to like it
Things were good but I skipped out
And when I kicked rocks they cut me to ribbons but what's left of me
Gets to be the new kid in town
(For a little while-- you don't get to be the new kid in town forever)
Heard you hitched a ride on 41
With a girl you thought you loved out looking for God and you found him
In a frame on a wall in Flagstaff
And when you got to the golden coast
Didn't know what to do with yourself so you didn't do anything
But there's one thing that I gotta know
Do you still wanna be my friend?
I want you to call every now and then
When you're in trouble and you're on your own and you know
The interstate never ends
When you're in town wouldn't it be nice
If we could be friends?
Coming down from wide acclaim
it doesn't take a genius to figure that the line isn't ending
When the line is just bending
Woke up on the line in New York
I shuffled onboard I could tell I was riding in a wax museum
Man there ain't enough stiffs on this train
(Who needs another rolling cemetary? Go on, cheer up man!)
Had a vision they knocked out my teeth
You asked me why the long face
I just smiled with my mouth shut
All those fangs ended up in my heel
I'm sick of doing things the hard way
It ain't initiation for clawing your way up from the bottom
It's just a crowded old dead-end street
Do you still wanna be my friend?
I want you to call every now and then
When you're in trouble and you're on your own and you know
The interstate never ends
When you're in town wouldn't it be nice
If we could be friends?
Waitin' for some way to put things
To come along by on the Greyhound from Philly to Boston
But nothing comes that easy for free
Turned from wanderer to refugee
Anathema from Times Square to the Pacific
It's a long road to ruin
But you still think I'm funny
(Well I think you're pretty funny too--and I think that's a good place to start over)
Do you still wanna be my friend?
I want you to call every now and then
When you're in trouble and you're on your own and you know
The interstate never ends
When you're in town wouldn't it be nice
If we could be friends?