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)