Life was getting harder every day
I was wondering if I could stay
Looked up to the sky, I’m not really someone who prays
And I knew I had to change something
Because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be here very long

But life can be cruel, It can take the starch out of you
And then you gotta’ figure out what the next step is on your path
Like a curveball thrown, you’ve got to try to keep your weight back and dump it into the outfield
And maybe this baseball analogy doesn’t really work here
But I was thinking about it when I was playing my guitar

Once you right the ship, it’s time to figure out what’s next on your journey
No one can tell you what that is, you’ve gotta’ come to that place on your own
It can be lonely and hard, but no one ever said that life would a picnic (and it’s not been one for me over the last five years or so)
But I’m still here, and I’m singing my songs and playing my guitar and I’m thinking, Today’s been a really, really good day, Today’s been a really good day. Today’s been a really, really…really good day

But life can be cruel, It can take the starch out of you
And then you gotta’ figure out what the next step is on your path
Like a curveball thrown, you’ve got to try to keep your weight back and drive it into the outfield
And maybe a baseball analogy doesn’t really work here
But I was thinking about it when I was playing my guitar

Sometimes, it seems, like every single song I write, is in D; I like the chords, especially the Em, and the D and the A, and the G
It’s a key that’s easy for me to write in and I’m making my living from the I, IV, V, with a ii chord thrown in (usually a minor), for good measure.

Life can be cruel, It can take the starch out of you
Then you gotta’ figure out what the next step is on your path
It’s like a curveball thrown, you’ve got to try to keep your weight back and drive it into the outfield
And maybe this baseball analogy doesn’t really work here
But I was thinking about it when I was playing my guitar

Cause I’m finding a new path, and it’s better than the old path
Because the old path was a sad path, and it was dragging me down into the darkness and I found a way out, banging my way with this old beat-up Yamaha guitar that I’d used to drag out to shows last summer drop it down and play a song, like “Pocahontas” by Neil Young along with all my obscure covers by bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Swearing at Motorists and T. Rex ain’t that obscure [but some people think they are] That’s the music I’ve been listening to since I was 8-years-old, on my AM radio, my transistor hiding out in bed listening to AM radio when they used to play “Summertime Blues” by Blue Cheer and they’d follow it up with Arlo Guthrie singing “Alice’s Restaurant” I mean 18 minutes and I mean who plays that fucking shit on the radio anymore? They don’t even play music anymore. What do they play on the radio?
We’ve got podcasts now, right?
We’ve got Joe Rogan, the Joe Rogan Experience
We’ve got streaming services like Spotify—they pay the artists like a penny when they play their songs.

Neil Young was a hero of mine. I mean he doesn’t really value free speech that allowed him to play songs like “Sugar Mountain and “Hey, Hey Into the Black”


But life can be cruel, It can take the starch out of you
And then you gotta’ figure out what the next step is on your path
Like a curveball thrown, you’ve got to try to keep your weight back and drive it into the outfield
And maybe this baseball analogy no longer really work here
But I was thinking about it one afternoon and I was playing my guitar

When I was about 12-years-old, I so wanted this old guitar (well, it wasn’t an old guitar—it was a new guitar)
It was a Fender knock-off; it was in Spark’s Department Store with a little practice amp
And I thought maybe if I learned to play that guitar I could be really somebody like I heard on the radio

But it never happened—my parents didn’t buy that guitar for me
Then I got into baseball and later on, became a writer.
Then one day, during a really dark, dark period after my son died I picked up that old Yamaha guitar and started playing

I guess all those years of listening to Neil Young, “Decade” and all the other albums, “Ragged Glory,” made me realize I played a little bit like Neil you

I don’t really know what’s up with Neil Young, he’s kinda’ gone off the rails.