"Neal, Joan, and Me" Lyrics

Neal, Joan, and Me

The whine of an eighteen wheeler

Awoke me from a dream

Where I had deep roots just like a dogwood tree

And I stretched out toward the sunbeams

Awake now in the car with my two friends

As we drove on through the night

One of them a little bit Neal Cassidy

The other a real Joan Baez type

From the twilit sky fell buckets full of rain

As we threaded ‘tween the hills

Heading south out of Ohio

Away from bosses, rent, and bills

(C) Through Wheeling, West Virginia

To the Carolina pines

We were practicing the art of getting lost

To see what we might find

Through Asheville and through Gatlinburg

We let the miles roll

And we learned which things were worth it to hold on to

Just by letting go

Just by letting go

For the first two days we hopped from town to town

Cruising pizza joints and bars

On the third, we lit out for the woods

To find somewhere with no cars

Mountains grew out of the hills

As we left the roads behind

Exchanging asphalt for a muddy trail

Traffic for peace of mind

We spent that night under a net of stars

That were shotgunned through the black

We talked until the sunrise interrupted

Then we packed up and made our way back

(C)

By day five, my bank account was dry

And, well, our freedom wasn’t free

I said we had to wake up for a little while

But Neal, he disagreed

We parted ways outside of Maggie Valley

Both agreeing it was best

Joan and I went north back to Ohio
  And Neal he headed west

I didn’t even ask where he was going

Before he left us there alone

‘Cause I knew someday our paths would cross again

Further on down the road

(C)