The Boy I Used To Be

When I was a little boy I lived in a little town
West of the Mississippi near the Maramec iron ground
There was a Pabst Blue Ribbon sign and a Western Auto store
And the SLSF railway but that don't run through there no more

It was a simple small town life where boys are brought up to dream
Of scoring touchdowns on Friday night for the high school football team
We'd go swimming in the river, fishing down by the creek
We see more out here in a year than them city boys do all week

But my family we did not live there long we left in 1983
But now I know there was so much more to see
But that little town will always live in me
The innocence of the way I was and the boy I used to be

Now a man can easily lose himself in this wild and wicked life
The boy inside might run and hide in the face of struggle and strife
But for all its pain all its strain life is magic yes it's true
Who'd of thought back then that somewhere somehow I would meet someone like you

So no matter how I fall, whatever heartache I might find
For my future's sake I can take from what I left behind
The town has now grown somehow even greater just because
It keeps alive my childhood and the boy I once was

Now I have learned not to want from folks things they cannot give
I've learned to live simply so that others may simply live
But I've seen so many fellas taken down by their own hand
They forget what it was to be a boy in their quest to become a man

So an all night drive across this land seems a mighty small price to pay
To gaze and wonder 'fore it all fades away
I'm gonna do it for the joy of doing, I'm gonna do the best I can
And remember the boy I used to be is still who I am