Hard Times for Old Heroes
Words and Music Pat Drummond
Nameline (Name withheld by request)
Dateline: Coonabarrabran

The 'Old Man' took his band
To Coonabarrabran
20 years of hits should've been enough for any man
But they voted with their feet
Cause just across the street
A tribute band played all those songs
He wrote back when he was young
I guess there are some things
against which you can't compete.

These are hard times for old heroes
Times when every hero knows
The reason that the legend seems to get away and grow
Has got less and less to do with who
You were and if those tales were true
And more do with other people's vanities and hopes
Hard times for a hero on the ropes

I watched him drain his glass
He laughed a bitter laugh
He Said "They wont find no future
livin' someone else's past
Just play the cards you're cast
It all goes by so fast
One day they say you're a star
The next your playing in this bar
Funny how the hardest part
is to try and make it last"

These are hard times for the old heroes
Times when every hero knows
that every second kid is dressing up in your old clothes
"I thought they'd wait till I was dead
to kiss my arse!" and then his agent said,
"Apparently they think you are."
and he counted up the tote
Hard times for a hero on the ropes

He said
"It seems to me that all those greats
that everybody imitates
They must be spinning in their graves.
Its everything I know they'd hate
This 'Hits and Memories' hit parade
Those 10 guys who decide what's played
Man, you could do a lot of good
with just one hand grenade!"
and My God!, I thought he meant it by that look upon his face

Then he laughed and said,
"Look, be yourself
You can't be nobody else.
That way, Son, if you don't get your break....
at least you
won't be confused
'bout who it is they hate!"

So here I am tonight
with one last song to write
still playing in the back blocks, babe,
but I'm doing all right
at least I'm being 'Me'
and, as far as I can see,
I can never be a 'Has Been'
cause I was not an 'Is Be'
I can never be a 'Has Been'
cause I was not an 'Is Be'

These are hard times for the old heroes
heroes come and heroes go
Sometimes it's your shadow
that's the hardest to outgrow
" Focus on the work," he said
"It's all you leave when you are dead
In time those songs will come to be
the friends that help you cope"
Hard times for a hero on the ropes

Hard times for a hero on the ropes

Chess Set Homepage / The Age Of Dissent / The Descent Of Age

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