| |
| I WAS hikin’ along the road by Simmonsville. | |
| I useta go out somewheres every Sunday | |
| And walk off all the dirt and noise and nerves | |
| That come from the week in the city in the store; | |
| And say, it was like I made myself clean over. | 5 |
| |
| I could see the top of the hill from where I was, | |
| And I was gettin’ excited the way I did | |
| When I been trampin’ up-hill for a ways | |
| In some place where I never was before | |
| And played games with myself about the view | 10 |
| That’s comin’ when I hit the top—you know: | |
| “Will it be a river twistin’ through the woods, | |
| Or a drop that makes your breath stick in your throat, | |
| Or will it be only nothin’, after all, | |
| Exceptin’ just the plain everyday country?” | 15 |
| It’s a great game, I’ll say…. I useta love it. | |
| And half the fun’s not knowin’ what is comin’…. | |
| |
| Well, fifty yards, maybe, is still to go, | |
| And I stops up to get my second wind, | |
| And then that sign it slaps me in the eye: | 20 |
“Picture Ahead!”
Can y’imagine it? | |
| “Picture Ahead!”… I ast you! What the hell! | |
| Is that the fix that all of us has got to? | |
| Is that what machinery has went and done? | |
| Autos, and airryoplanes, and railroad trains, | 25 |
| And all the helps the papers yells about, | |
| Tellin’ us how the worl’ is so much better, | |
| And what a bunch of boobs our fathers was? | |
| They want to make us all machines, is that it? | |
| Even they got to take away the fun | 30 |
| Of guessin’ what is comin’ on the road! | |
| They tell us, “Hurry! Get the camera out! | |
| You ain’t got sense enough to tell what’s what. | |
| You can’t tell when they’s anything worth seein’.” | |
| I got so mad, I went and jumped the fence, | 35 |
| And run acrost the field. Damned if I’d go | |
| And see a sight that was all canned, you might say, | |
Or like a travel-movie….
All my life | |
| I had my fun pretendin’ to myself | |
| That every view I seen belonged to me, | 40 |
| Different from anybody’s, mine especial. | |
“Picture Ahead!”
I stopped there in the field, | |
| And turned aroun’, and beat it for the train. | |
| |
| I just can’t get the heart to go no more. | |
| The country’s spoilt, and lots of things is spoilt, | 45 |
| Just on account that sign…. I feel so old, | |
| And everything I see looks old and worn-out. | |
| |
| Machinery!… Machinery!… “Picture Ahead!”… | |
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