Mileage

We drove six states on study drugs And Super Silver Haze "Shine On Sweet Jesus" Was blasting half the way We finally hit Chicago When the sun began to rise And that was ninety thousand miles And half a dozen lives ago The first year nearly killed me As I lived on mac and cheese Hit the streets with paper resumes Like my father in the 60s We spent a bitter winter Smoking hash and playing Risk And that was eighty thousand miles And half a dozen lives ago My folks were teaching English To the English in those days Flew back and forth to London Each year on holidays My mother made me scrambled eggs As I stumbled off the plane And that was sixty thousand miles And half a dozen lives ago I wrote some plays that no one saw And I fell into an easy thing With someone who I knew deep down Would never wear my ring Fell out with my companions So then I lit out again And that was forty thousand miles And half a dozen lives ago The west coast felt like heaven For a couple months at first But in the end you always wind up Coming down to earth We fought to keep it going Fought to tear each other down And that was twenty thousand miles And half a dozen lives ago