John Thorpe - Old Tom

Old Tom
Old Tom watched the river flow
Staring at the pool below
A ragged, scarecrow silhouette
The kind of man you'd not forget
Every inch the pauper king
He tied his coat with a piece of string
Lived his life from day to day
He got by in his own way
Why he lived the life he led we never asked and he never said
We never knew the rhyme or the reason
And just where he came from no one knows, no one cared much I suppose
Just another lonely soul left with nowhere else to go

He owned a fine old violin
The music came from deep within
He never had that much to say
He said it all in the tunes he'd play
He never stood upon no stage
He played those tunes for a beggars' wage
Did it all without regret
For a bottle of beer or a cigarette
Seems like he was born to wander free, it must have been his destiny
To roam each winding highway and bye way
Music filled his universe, both a blessing and a curse
Held him from the day he fell under its enchanting spell

He lived out on the edge of town
Where darkness fell when the sun went down
He lay his head on a bed of straw
Beneath the stars on the forest floor
There he lay alone each night
Out of mind and out of sight
Reflected in the campfire glow
He took his fiddle and he raised the bow

You'd look at him and time stood still
He must have been old as the hills
Like some picture in a frame
He never changed, he stayed the same
He played the part in the clothes he wore
What you got was what you saw
Solitary, destitute
There for all to persecute
Would you look at him, he'd hear them say
What's he doing here anyway
They made him pay the price for being different
And like children playing children's games
Laughed at him and called him names
Who were they to criticise the way that such men lived their lives

Old Tom watched the river flow
Staring at the pool below
A ragged scarecrow silhouette
The kind of man you'd not forget

Written by:
John Thorpe

Publisher:
Lyrics © O/B/O DistroKid

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