He’s more or less a permanent fixture
in Harry’s Bar and Grill
Plastered to the table like a sloe gin fizz
that’s got all night to kill
Sometimes he looks like linoleum
weather-beaten, racked up and old
Sometimes he cries he’s getting thin in the middle
‘cause everyone keeps stepping
right on over his soul

But he was once somebody’s baby
He was once somebody’s son
He bought the dream of tomorrow
Somewhere the dream’s gone wrong
He was once somebody’s future
Once he was a part of the past
but nobody needs to hear yesterday’s dreams
and tomorrow’s where the buck got passed
Oh, where did the time go?
Don’t you think it went too fast?

He made thirty thousand dollars in textiles
but he only brought home seventeen
and the boy needed braces and a new pair of eyes
while the girl’s still got that college dream
He had a house and a wife he could call his own
He lost them when the mortgage was due
Now he says “What kind of life leaves a man alone,
“Just when it’s time to reap the harvest he grew?”

But he was once somebody’s baby
He was once somebody’s son
He bought the dream of tomorrow
Somewhere the dream’s gone wrong
He was once somebody’s future
Once he was a part of the past
but nobody needs to hear yesterday’s dreams
and tomorrow’s where the buck got passed
Oh, where did the time go?
Don’t you think it went too fast?

He’s got an anger that feeds on his loneliness
and a hunger that the food can’t kill
All he eats any more is this emptiness
and he wonders where to send the bill
He says “I’m no kind of politician
“but I’m not gonna run any more”
He says “We all know something’s missing here
“and it’s chewing our souls right on down to the bones”

But he was once somebody’s baby
Once he was a somebody’s son
He bought the dream of tomorrow
I don’t know where the dream’s gone wrong
He was once somebody’s future
Once he was a part of the past
but nobody needs to hear yesterday’s dreams
and tomorrow’s where the buck got passed
Oh, where did the time go?
Don’t you think it went too fast?