Thomas Anderson

singer, songwriter, rock 'n' roller

To Fall By the Wayside

by Thomas Anderson

from the album On Becoming Human

Through time's deceit and trickery

I took a hollow victory,

It was something

But it was nothing just the same.

When you're waiting riding out the storm

You cling to anything that's warm,

And you rue the day

You gave your heart away.

I confess I harbored in my soul

A wish to see you brought down low,

You -- so high and mighty

And so proud.

But I never dreamed you'd fall so hard

Among your beauty's broken shards,

When fortune changed

And knocked you to the ground.

And then what.

And then what happens to the blessed

When they fall by the wayside

Just like all the rest.

And then what.

My friends are always telling me

That I'm my own worst enemy,

And every grudge I hold

Holds me today.

But now it seems irrelevant,

I say This isn't what I meant,

When I see you

Before I have to look away.

And may God strike me deaf and blind

If ever I was as unkind

As time has been

In the years that passed.

So we meet late in the day

Broken in our different ways,

And I think What a waste

It was my friend.

And then what....