///*****/// [Intro] An empty hotel ballroom And a piano nobody plays [Verse 1] They put my face on a magazine In nineteen eighty-five And they printed something clever And I read it about nine times And there was a car and there was a house And a woman who did not stay And a man who came to see me Every second Saturday With a briefcase and a smile And a bag inside his coat And I called him my best friend And he was neither of those both [Pre-Chorus] And nobody says stop to you When you are selling out the halls Everybody laughs at everything And nobody ever calls [Chorus] And it is a long way down from here And the ground comes up so fast And everybody watching Will say they saw it in the past Nobody catches anybody When the shine goes off the year And you find out who was with you On the long way down from here Long way down from here [Verse 2] The band went first, and fairly And I do not blame them now I was late for every session And I was cruel at every sound Then the label got a lawyer And the lawyer got it done And I signed away the catalogue For a sum I spent by June And I woke up in Las Vegas On a floor I did not know With a court date in the morning And nowhere left to go [Pre-Chorus] And the man with the briefcase Was long gone by then He had another face to work on And another year to spend [Chorus] And it is a long way down from here And the ground comes up so fast And everybody watching Will say they saw it in the past Nobody catches anybody When the shine goes off the year And you find out who was with you On the long way down from here Long way down from here [Verse 3] My mother sent a bus ticket To a jail in Bakersfield And she did not put a letter in And she did not have to And I rode it forty hours With my head against the glass And she was standing at the station In a coat from nineteen sixty-eight And she did not say a single word About the whole entire thing She just took the bag out of my hand And she said come on in [Pre-Chorus] So I am forty-nine and sober And I teach guitar on Thursdays And I have got eleven students And a small and decent place [Bridge] They still play me on the oldies And it pays about enough And sometimes in the supermarket Somebody looks me up And they say weren't you, and I say yes And I do not say the rest [Guitar Solo] [Final Chorus] Because it is a long way down from here And the ground comes up so fast But the ground is not the ending And the ground is where you last Nobody catches anybody So you learn to land it clear And there is a life on the other side Of the long way down from here Long way down from here [Coda] So to the ones on the way up With the world inside your hand Look around the room tonight And name them if you can The ones who will be with you When the whole thing disappears Those are the only people Worth a single one of these years [Outro] An empty hotel ballroom And a piano nobody plays And a man who is still here And who is getting through the day
