Wrote this after reading Gabriella Allman's ( (Duane's daughter) book. It reminded me of the moment that changes everything in a flash, never to be the same again. In music, it happens too often. Drug over doses, motorcycle wrecks, plane crashes, gun shots. It happens in real life too. None of us in immune. We need each other so much.
Lyrics
THERE WAS A TIME
He don't know why twin fiddles makes him cry
He don't know why his whiskey leaves him broke
He don't know what happened to that twinkle in his eye
Life has no punch line its a running joke
There was a time when the lights were shinin'
Life was ripe with possibilites
Then that moment comes along
Leaves you twiddlin with your thumbs
You were standing tall now you're knocked down to your knees
Tears refract the light so you can't see
He don't know why a mandolin leaves such an empty lonesome feel
Or why his blood turns to hot tar when hears a pedal steel
The whiskey makes him wiser. He forgets the good old days
The real world's too hard bring on the blindness of the haze
There was a time when the lights were shinin'
Life was ripe with possibilites
Then suddenly you fall with no effort from you at all
And memory equates to tragedy
Your tears refract the light so you can't see
He don't mind he's sitting here alone
His compadres and muchachos are all gone
One minute they were there
The next not anywhere
Mourning replaced the extacy
He's hanging out with people you can't see
There was a time when the lights were shinin'
Life was ripe with possibilites
Then suddenly you fall with no effort from you at all
And memory equates to tragedy
Your tears refract the light so you can't see