How the years have gone.

It's come to this.

A rose on his lapel, in the open coffin I'd give him a kiss.


I have to go up north to play at his funeral,

and his wife is there,

in some chapel she's picked out,

and there's not even an organ!

I have to play on some broken upright piano.


Listen to these low notes.


What a joke.

And you have to park and you couldn't even hear the ceremony in the cemetery,

because the noise from the traffic and construction is so terrible.


And I stood there in the slush,

and I walked along, very slowly,

to the tree by the turn

and I went in front of my mother and father and sister and husband's graves,

and looked over to the sun setting to the right.


Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

And I thought of myself.

And I thought of them,

in the cold hard ground.


You still can't believe!

You still can't believe!


I didn't believe it then,

and i don't believe it now.

I didn't believe it then,

and i don't believe it now.

I didn't believe it then and i don't believe it now.

But there it is.


Listen to this tune I'm playing for you now, kids.

Does it seem sad?

Does it remind you of when?


Shady grave,

come the summer it will be.

Shady grave,

come the summer it will be.


Well I can hear the cars just

a hundred feet behind.

And I smell the rock salt in the air.

And I know in my bones it isn't fair.


And the sun sets in the sleet to the side