Song Description

The youngest of 4 children now sees his task as putting what the family life and his father's advice meant to him.

Lyrics

Years Left To Burn

Youth is wasted on the young /my father often said
As if speaking some great wisdom/ he?d smile and shake his head
He said his father used to tell him / You?ll think I?m wiser later on
He said about the time he turned 35 / He started to catch on

He said wait until you?ve lived some years / maybe marry & have some kids
And shoulder responsibility / just like you?ll see I did
And you?ll think back to these talks we had / And the words of this old fool
And you?ll wish you could have understood /But we all go through that school
To the school of experience / where you try to find your way
I?ll tell you in advance / every choice has a consequence
Including the ones you?re too afraid to make

Well in his family of origin / there were two daughters and three sons
And he grew up on a dairy farm up in northern Wisconsin
And he used to tell me stories / of how his boyhood was denied
Cause he worked the farm and he went to school / from early morning til the night

He said son I think I?ve realized / the mistake I made with you
I tried to spare you the hardship / the rest of us went through
But now I can see I?ve spoiled you / I didn?t make you pay a price
for the things that we have given you / But I gave you my best advice
Life?s a school of trial and error / through the lessons we must learn
I hope you figure out what life?s about / While you still
Got some years left to burn

Well I wish I?d known my father / the way my brothers did
They were all grown up and gone / and I was still just a kid
Thank goodness for my sister / she brought life to the family
But without each and every one of us / who knows who we all might now be?

And now seems it?s up to me, / the oversensitive one
Now that I?ve reached my fifties / it might be the time has come
With my father dead now thirty years / and the rest of us still living on
It?s time to see the sense of it / maybe put it in a song

Words&music © 2006 by Kurtis Lehman