Dan Fogelberg – Leader Of The Band Lyrics

An only child alone and wild, a cabinet maker's son
His hands were meant for different work
And his heart was known to none
He left his home and went his lone and solitary way
And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay

A quiet man of music denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn't wait
He earned his love through discipline, a thundering velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand

The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy to the leader of the band

My brother's lives were different for they heard another call
One went to Chicago and the other to St Paul
And I'm in Colorado when I'm not in some hotel
Living out this life I've chose and come to know so well

I thank you for the music and your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go
I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough
And papa, I don't think I said I love you near enough

The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy to the leader of the band
I am a living legacy to the leader of the band

Songwriters: Fogelberg, Dan
Leader Of The Band lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

a shredded bath mat, a Dead Sea salted bath, and a cold root beer
you want vino veritas vignettes,
color commentary, stray dog thoughts
time lapsed into a ****** single poem wood,
ha ha ha you can't handle the falsified lies
that constitute a sad man's disfigured truths

nobody cares that failure contretemps
inhabit every other thought,
his own sounds of silence sung repetitiously,
every severed second a new verse
coughed up and cursed,
emptying your verbal purse,
snorting with disgust
at your own claptrap vetted pomposity,
who gives a ****...

what I got is the ability
if you can call it that,
to cerebralize verbalize
every eye picture, inputted impulse,
knowing in the fullness of the unwell
that hash for breakfast ain't
suitable for mass consumption

a shredded bath mat,
a Dead Sea salted bath,
and a cold root beer
begat a poem of knowing nowing
a pretend poet meowing what he seen,
what he got temple pounding

Fogelberg sings Auld Lang Syne,
swig down the root beer,
thinking that is one freaking good song,
a life reviewed on the HP stage,

his lyrics modified
with only a tune he can hear

no one will like this,
as it should be,
don't like it me neither,
double negatives for rule busting emphasis,
the only point, ending circumscribed,
curcumsized  by children who don't love,
an ex wife hateful ***** man-enslaver,
this close || to losing your job,
*** is the new ***,
ain't it pc
to singalong
standing on a shredded bath mat,
fresh from a Dead Sea salted bath,
and having drunk a cold root beer,
Crosby Stills & Nash chiming in
teach the children well
their father's hell
will slowly go bye

and this is a poem

that I didn't write,
just reported the here and the there,
and the nothing in between

Saturday morning, well armed
coffee cup and newspapers,
from days past and miracle!
even future, Sunday news,
prematurely birthed.
Content to content.

Pandora supplies the music,
outside, clouds of steam tinge,
decorate a pale blue sky,
freshwater pearls from man,
a choker to grace
nature's blue purity.

All's well, a weekend day as
God meant it to be, labor free.

Then I am weeping.

Dan Fogelberg, poet songwriter,
cancer victim, longtime gone,
weeps me into a memorable mess.

Leader of the Band,
a tribute to his father,
shipwrecks me on his
river of souls.

So much more, needs adding.

But songs end, and so do I.

But the tears keep reforming,
falling freely as I acknowledge freely,
my father too, a good man,
a cancer victim,
who led his band,
his fellow patients in the
doctor's waiting room
in spontaneous uplifting song.

I have no idea why
I was so entitled.
I have no idea
what to entitle this.

As Dan wrote/sang,
cry when you have to,
it's part of the plan.