The Boy I Used To Be

When I was a little boy I lived in a little town West of the Mississippi near the Maramec iron ground There was a Pabst Blue Ribbon sign and a Western Auto store And the SLSF railway but that don't run through there no more It was a simple small town life where boys are brought up to dream Of scoring touchdowns on Friday night for the high school football team We'd go swimming in the river, fishing down by the creek We see more out here in a year than them city boys do all week But my family we did not live there long we left in 1983 But now I know there was so much more to see But that little town will always live in me The innocence of the way I was and the boy I used to be Now a man can easily lose himself in this wild and wicked life The boy inside might run and hide in the face of struggle and strife But for all its pain all its strain life is magic yes it's true Who'd of thought back then that somewhere somehow I would meet someone like you So no matter how I fall, whatever heartache I might find For my future's sake I can take from what I left behind The town has now grown somehow even greater just because It keeps alive my childhood and the boy I once was Now I have learned not to want from folks things they cannot give I've learned to live simply so that others may simply live But I've seen so many fellas taken down by their own hand They forget what it was to be a boy in their quest to become a man So an all night drive across this land seems a mighty small price to pay To gaze and wonder 'fore it all fades away I'm gonna do it for the joy of doing, I'm gonna do the best I can And remember the boy I used to be is still who I am