Lyrics

Spoken:
Back toward the turn of the century, you know, Mark Twain took a trip around the world on a steamship and he wrote a book called ‘Following the Equator’. And the opening page has a dedication that says, ‘Be good, and you will be lonesome,’ which for me, still seems to work in the fabulous eighties.

Jason Mason hears the sound
The whistle blows in Congotown
And the mail boat’s in mail boat’s in

It brings him things from oh so far
Old magazines and Snickers Bars
A simple man a simple land
The world’s too big to understand

Be good and you will be lonesome
Be lonesome and you will be free
Live a lie and you will live to regret it
That’s what living is to me
That’s what living is to me

On a timeless beach in Hispaniola
A young girl sips a diet cola
She’s worlds apart worlds apart
The spirit of the black king still
Reverberates through Haitian hills
He rules the sea and all the fish
What if he had a TV dish

Now in the far off regions
the foreign legion
Keeps the thieves and the
predators at bay
While closer to home
some bad boys still roam
The streets aren’t safe so give it
One more day, one more day

The stories from my favorite books
Still take on many different looks
And I’m gone again, home again
The time has come the walrus said
And little oysters hide their head
My twain of thought is loosely bound
I guess it’s time to mark this down

Be good and you will be lonesome
Be lonesome and you will be free
Live a lie and you will live to regret it
That’s what living is to me
That’s what living is to me

Spoken:
“Thank you, Mark.”