The Fiddler Outside the Greyhound Station

Lyrics

There's an old man with a fiddle by the Greyhound door
Playing for the ones with nowhere left to be
I stepped off a bus with one bag and a bruise
He nodded like he'd known the likes of me
Didn't ask me where, didn't ask me why
Just bowed a tune that shook the cold away
I put my last two dollars in his open hat
And he played me something close to grace

Play it for the ones who just got in
Play it for the ones about to go
Every road runs through a station
Every heart's got somewhere it don't know
Fiddle in the evening, fiddle in the rain
Say it's not too late to start again
Play it for the ones who just got in
And the long way home will show

He said he rode these buses forty years
Lost a wife to a town he couldn't stay in
Now he gives the strangers what he never got
A little music when the night is thin
The announcer called my bus in a voice like gravel
I stood there with my ticket in my hand
And I let the next one go, and then the next
Till I had something like a plan

Play it for the ones who just got in
Play it for the ones about to go
Every road runs through a station
Every heart's got somewhere it don't know
Fiddle in the evening, fiddle in the rain
Say it's not too late to start again
Play it for the ones who just got in
And the long way home will show

Some men leave a house behind
Some men leave a name
He left a song on a concrete floor
And a lot of folks the same

Play it for the ones who just got in
Play it for the ones about to go
Every road runs through a station
Every heart's got somewhere it don't know
Fiddle in the evening, fiddle in the rain
Say it's not too late to start again
Play it for the ones who just got in
And the long way home will show

Play it for the ones who just got in
And the long way home will show