Stringman
Neil Young

You can say the soul is gone
And the feeling is just not there
Not like it was so long ago.

On the empty page before you
You can fill in what you care
Try to make it new before you go.

Take the simple case of the sarge
Who can't go back to war
'Cause the hippies
tore down everything
that he was fighting for.

Or the lovers on the blankets
That the city turned to whores
With memories
of green kissed by the sun.

You can say the soul is gone
And close another door
Just be sure
that yours is not the one.

And I'm singing for the stringman
Who lately lost his wife
There is no dearer friend of mine
That I know in this life.

On his shoulder rests a violin
For his head where chaos reigns
But his heart
can't find a simple way
To live with all those things.

All those things
He's a stringman
A stringman
All those strings to pull