Lyrics

Ma'd send me to fetch my Dad - from that ol' honky tonk bar
where on a jukebox I first heard - that train whistle voice and guitar

Ma knew she'd lost me too - when I started walkin' Dad home
his big hat on my little head - humming songs of drinking alone

A proud boy I used to pretend - our porch was the Opry stage
'round suppertime some whippoorwills - and those rolling Tennessee hills
put my first rhyme to a page

Chorus: THAT NIGHT A TEARSTAINED SONG
BECAME MY ONLY TOY
YES I THANK GOD I WAS BORN
BUT I * THANK * HANK * I'M A COUNTRY BOY

THOSE NIGHTS A TEARSTAINED SONG
BECAME MY ONLY JOY
YES, I THANK GOD I WAS BORN
BUT I * THANK * HANK * I'M A COUNTRY BOY

The clean air stays near the floor - 'neath the thick blue smoke at night
and there's a clean life somewhere - under the blue songs I write

but moonshine casts long shadows - behind every song I sing
I feel I'm just a puppet - someone else pulls my six-string

In those dusk to dawn saloons - when some drunk yells: 'play one more'
come dawn like a sad pedal steel - I let the whine of my fast wheels
down lost highways be my encore

CHORUS: WHEN..

Bridge: and in those wee-wee hours
nursed by whiskey sours
each new song is my flesh and bone
like children of my own

Chorus: WHEN I STEP ON STAGE
I FIND MY PRIDE AND JOY
THEN I THANK GOD I WAS BORN
BUT I * THANK * HANK * I'M A COUNTRY BOY

YES, I THANK GOD I WAS BORN
BUT I * THANK * HANK * I'M A COUNTRY BOY

(c) Robert George 2001