Dave Keats songs are © copyright protected.

Too Young To Worry, Too Old To Care

I was working sixty hours on the factory line.
When I knocked off all I wanted was to get my head down,
But as soon as I dropped off my mind began to roam,
This is what I dreamt.

I was living in a Panamanian shanty town
With my wife and five children when I heard the sound
Of a hurricane that blew the whole damn village down.
It killed everyone 'cept me.

So I drifted up the coast. Wound up in L.A.
Liked what I saw so decided to stay.
Thinking the high life there would drive those bad mem'ries away,
But little did I know.

Well I'd just began to live my life again.
Even changed the colour of my skin
Cos blacks are still considered second class citizens,
Except where they come from.

I was cruising through the back streets in my beat up old car.
After what I'd been through, thought I was doing no harm.
But none of those ladies offered me their charms
On that cold December night.

Well a policeman pulled me over to the side of the road.
Asked why I kept stopping when no-one was hitchin' a ride.
I said all I wanted was a little comfort for the night,
He granted my wish, in a ten by four cell.

I got knocked stone cold senseless on the cold stone floor
Just for offering cash to girls who needed some more.
If they'd only make it legal on these Western shores,
Maybe they'd stop a lot of crime.

When I woke the next morning, half alive and half dead
I was wishing I was somebody else instead.
Ain' it just like the cops to go an' turn up
Just when you need 'em the least?

The judge sat silent as they read my charge.
Mumbled indiscretions as he sipped from his glass.
Didn't even look my way when he said "ten years
Boy you're goin' down".

In the time that I served inside that can
They had it checked out exactly where it was that I came from.
Said "we've no room in our country for an alien".
I asked "but where do we go from here". He said.

Don' ask no question, I've no answers to give.
An' besides a man should learn to solve his problems for himself
I ain' got no wise words or philosophy to share,
Cos I'm too young to worry an' too old to care.

I started trav'lin' the world, got involved in the war.
Didn't even know what I was fighting for.
All I know is I's supplied with a gun
An' a capsule to swallow, in case I got caught.

So I ducked my head low an' threw my rounds away.
Sometimes living's so hard, death seems the only way.
But it's so damn expensive an' I've no-one to pay
So I stuck around for a while.

After all the fighting finished I set off again
On the first fastest furthest bound aeroplane
An' as soon as we landed I was in the shit again,
A coup had just taken place.

The government ordered a curfew, North East South and West.
They claimed that all the missing persons were alive and dead.
But who believes a word those politicians say anyway?
I don't. How about you?

I checked into a motel, ordered veal a la crème.
I hadn't eaten since I'd gone to bed and started this the dream.
But then I wrestled ten rounds with food poisoning,
I was beat down an' out.

When I woke the next morning, half alive and half dead,
In a cold sweat an' ion a foreign hospital bed.
"We need your name an' particulars" the doctor said,
Before we let you go.

They finally took away my passport an' deported me home.
After all those things that happened I was back to square one.
An' when I got back it wasn't just my family that was gone,
Or just the village at that.

A drought had caused a famine that had wiped out half the world,
An' it proved a little something, for what it was worth.
There's always someone somewhere who's worse off than you are,
But don' ask me why.

Well all those things that I bin dreamin'. All those things I said.
All those crazy thoughts that I've had running 'round in my head
They don' only happen in your bed.
They happen somewhere in the world everyday.

I wish those things didn't happen in my thoughts or in real life.
But who am I to say what's wrong and what's right?
If there's a lord up there an' he won't put these things right
Why ask me at all?