Soundtrack

I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had,
We lived happily forever, so the story goes,
But somehow we missed out on the pot of gold...

I was going to do this, I was going to be that,
I even made a bet that I would eat my hat,
If I didn't achieve a particular goal,
For which I am probably now too old. 

Life is what happens to you, while you're busy making other plans...

How profound, I thought, when I first heard those words,
Way back when, when my path had just started to stray,
From the dreams I had held, and the plans I planned to make,
That gave way to the struggles of living from day to day.

The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand...

Every now and then, something would seem to inspire,
I'd step up to the plate, and work hard enough to perspire,
But sooner or later, I'd run right out of steam,
And in the end, there'd be just another failed dream.

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were...

Of all the wrong turns I've made through the years,
I knew exactly which one was the worst,
Of all the things I left back in that place,
The one I left with's been my curse.

It's hard to hold the hand of anyone
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender...

Once I looked up where an eagle soared,
With shining eyes and wings of gold,
But that eagle's long gone, and with it my will,
So I empty another box of red swill.

You could've done anything, if you'd wanted.
And all your friends and family think that you're lucky.
But the side of you they'll never see
Is when you're left alone with the memories
That hold your life together like glue...

Every failed endeavour, each abandoned dream,
Got easier to swallow, than the one before,
It seems once you get used to things,
They don't matter any more.

This is the day your life will surely change.
This is the day when things fall into place.

I sang that song a thousand times,
And each one I knew for sure,
That this time was that special one,
Whose power would endure. 

Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last...

So here I am, at last to face,
The real truth of it all,
That over and over and over again,
What I'm best at is dropping the ball.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half...

And suddenly it occurs to me,
That if I'm in my middle ages,
I'm only halfway to the end,
And I've still to write half the pages.

Look
A new day has begun

And so this ends on a positive note,
Despite the despair and dismay,
For it's just the way I've always wrote,
I don't know any other way.

All is lost
If one abandons Hope
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With a little help from my friends: Dennis, John, Roy, Neil, Leonard, The, Robert, Andrew, and Klaatu.