They say you never can go home again,

But there he was playing on the big stage,

Right there in his old hometown.

And I detected rage in his voice

When he said that it was nothing like his home at all.

They had never let him play here

While he was trying to make it,

And he was even better back then, he said,

With a roughness in his heart,

And a toughness in his throat,

That the professionals had tried so hard to polish out of him.

And the people that made up the crowd

Had come from miles and miles around

To hear him play and sing.

It wasn't his neighbors or cousins or his parents

He saw sitting in the audience.

But something about being in his old hometown

Brought the edge back.

A toughness came out of his mouth.

His fans didn't like it,

And it had almost ruined him

To come back to play in his old hometown.

So maybe it's not that you can't go home,

But maybe, once you get going,

Its just that you shouldn't.

-jenn