Story Behind The Song

This story is based on a real character I often saw busking in Exeter, Devon UK some years ago. As I often say when I introduce this song in a show. 'He looked authentic. He could have been a character from Walt Whitman, John Steinbeck or Jack Kerouac and back again through Woody Guthrie'.

Song Description

Speculation about the life of an old man busking the streets of an English West Country town. Almost a fantasy that he had lived the life of an American cowboy/hobo/gambler/ itinerant worker. The song ends with the reality that he's really just an old man playing his guitar and singing country songs for pennies in an English high street.

Lyrics

An Old Busker

He was just an old fella' busking the street
An old white stetson, no shoes on his feet.
Silver hair falling down a weather worn face,
A man with a story who'd run his own race.

CHORUS:

And he sang Faded Love, The Wabash Cannonball.
Was Alabama Bound, heard the Coyote's Call.
He was a Lonesome Cowboy, whoop-a-ti-yi-oh,
Get Along Little Dogies ride around so slow.

There was something about him as people passed by
That old worn out guitar, the look in his eye
As if he'd lived those old songs = he did look the part
And the words he sang came straight from his heart.

chorus

He could have been a cowpuncher, an old buckeroo
A trail-herding rounder, a muleskinner too.
Hard travelling, hard rambling, gambling man.
In any saloon could have laid down his hand.
Could have worked the orchards, ridden the freights, walked a long dusty highway,
Could have hit fifty states.
But no, an old man busking in a West Country town
With a handful of coins in his hat on the ground.

chorus x2

He was Bound For Glory....