He came to town with a lot of dreams
Swapped BMG for KFC
And four strings on his Gibson
And now he's frying chicken.

He swore someday the world of country music
but he held on to his faded dreams
Would be his'n his jeans and cowboy hat
He drove a beat up Chevy truck
He still leans in that microphone
And he didn't have no money
Says you want some fries with that
But he was such a god ole boy.

The last time that I saw him
Back when he was hungry
He was singin' down at Tootsie's
He wrote some songs and walked the streets
A big tattoo on both his arms
Beggin' folks to listen and his earring was a beauty.

Sometimes he crawled just like a snake
He said, ''I'm goin' rock'n roll.''
Without a pit to hiss in those guys make all the money
He looked like Garth and sang like Hank
From now on you can call me.

And everybody loved him
the artist formerly known as Hungry
He swore he'd never change a thing
Back when he was hungry.

Back when BMI and CMA were only letters
And R&R was what you took to get to feeling better
And Billboard was a road sign
Not a chart that came on Monday
Life was oh, so simple back then
Back when he was hungry.

And then one day he wrote a song
That got someone's attention
The A&R at BMG got J-O-E to listen
Then Joe called James and James called Don
Don called Mrs. Hilley and Oermann wrote
He's gonna be the next big hot hillbilly.

Well his record went to number one
And the good ole boy went crazy
He hired a band then fired a band
He toured and then got lazy.

suddenly he knew it all
The rest of us were dummies
he scarcely could remember
Back when he was hungry.

Well, he married and then he got divorced
And met this cute young honey
He thought she craved his body
But she only craved his money.

She cleaned out his bank account
Then ran off with his drummer
Left him where he started from
Back when he was hungry.

Well, he lost his deal and life got real
And he had to give up pickin'...