1966 the world was just waking up and coming to
In San Francisco the Beatles played candlestick and everything was feeling brand new
The Beat Poets had all but left North Beach
And the scene had moved to the park
In the middle of all that my man lightning lit up the dark
He was born Charlie McCristy in an east coast suburban town
He was a country club kid with a silver spoon playing on fresh cut ground
All the teachers called him brilliant
All the girls they loved his face
But he didn't feel the love inside so first chance he got he lit up out of that place
Like Lightning, flashing off and on
Then he was gone
He took a scholarship to San Francisco State
And had all the promise in the world
But soon he discover Carousel ballroom shows, pills and free love girls
It didn't take long to change him and he stopped going to class
A few hits of Owsley will do that to you
A few hits of Owsley will put you on your ass
Yeah his hippie friends called him lightning
That suited him just fine
His mind was always moving fast and working moving overtime
He had ideas for space phone and personal arithmetic machines
But the drugs kept the genius bottled up and they remained just dreams
He could not bottle lightning, flashing
Off and I, then it was gone
BR They were throwing around the I-Ching
They were dancing round the fire
It would be hard to find a place on earth that was getting any higher
LSD, Mescalito Lightning passed that acid test
But there were times when he couldn't feel the love inside and it left him disillusioned and depressed
 
The sixties turned into the 70's and Lightning drifted further west
To a beach shack in Lahaina but by then he was just a mess
The dope was replaced by hard liquor and an anger inside
The free love dream was over to him the free love dream was a lie
He drowned one night in Kauai drunk on stolen cheapo champagne
His Hawaiian friends at his funeral didn't even know his real name
Just a thumb nail sketch of Lightning he came and then he went
One second you are here and then you disappear your soul lost in the firmament
Like Lightning, flashing, off and on
And then it is gone.