He was a dealer of dirty jokes breathing unfiltered Camel smoke And everything he said was a lie but he had me by the rope The noose around my neck with every yawning story that he told But I still listened there, bended ear hoping I'd come close To touch the truth and hit the root of the life that he lived He never ran guns or shot pool with any famous chicks Phil Spector wasn't his b**h waitin' on his lips For a little bit of c**aine or braceful beautiful wish I know my words will slip and I know I tell a couple lies I've known to accentuate; exaggeratin' stories all the time And I wonder why, will it magnify by the time I reach fifty And realise my life never turned out the way I planned it simply So I gotta stretch the truth and tell the things I never did Until I'm runnin' guns with Saddam Hussain and all his stupid kids So I wonder why he'd tell those lies and breath it down my neck A bunch of foul smoke inside of my ears on whiskey breath And I'm sittin' here - a little kid right in front of his chair Tellin' another story c'mon Uncle bend my freakin' ear I wanna hear the tale, tell me time again over now How you were runnin' d** across the border from the north on down To Alaska, along the oil pipeline and into Canada Taking 'em down through Washington state and hanging out And doing damage to the brain that God gave 'im wonderin' what I understand If you don't have the truth how can I shake your hand see And I got a couple questions that make me a little curious, homie Doesn't the story make up the man when the man makes up the story? There was never stolen cars, there was always a couple bars There was eyes full of stars and a lack-luster fallin hard And everything I understood that you done with your life Has all just been sacrificed upon the cross of truth tonight See, I seen it all breakin' down, a sad old man With a couple bruised rib cages and a shaky left hand His beard is scraggly and the top of his head is goin' bald And it's all peeling away, falling back, all the stories that he told And I wonder where I can find the truth inside this now It's more than the toast, it's the crumbs of the motherf**er breakin' down And watchin' after sixty five years upon this earth What happens to everything that you thought made up your worth And see I know there's a couple bits of truth in all of this There was no stolen cars, there was a couple of stolen kisses Couple of illegitimate kids, a couple of broken bottles And all the time in prison, all the time inside the hospital Was the thing that was real without the ma** appeal The truth is always the ugliest side so should polish it up for real And so it makes you wonder Why would this motherf**er tell me all these lies And pull the rug out under the covers And I'm lookin' at him now, stare inside his sunken eyes And realise he ain't the bit of wisdom, the super-sized guy He's just an old man, slow hand, stumbblin' breath Just tryin' to make it up the stairs without losing, pains in chests And I think what will happen to me when I wake up from this dream And realise I'm twenty four see and I got a couple years left A couple beers left, a couple friends left, a couple grindin' gears left And I'm breakin' sweat and wonderin' one day how I will be breakin' down And live in an old folks town wearin' my tattered broken crown And I'll be wavin' a hand for servants that answer no beck and call Because everyone has left standing me holdin' my balls And I got to make ends meat in this thing I called my life The bitter circle ring that made me back to the beginning right I started to help this baby into this way in a wheelchair maybe And now I gotta act, maybe explain the way that I was so crazy Tell you why I lived this stupid lie that I did And all the time that I spent chasin' around girls and chicks And all the time that ain't for sh**, you told me the truth The truth is you can't lie if you gotta try to produce because Life'll bite you in the a** in the end And then you're standin' there on the corner without any friends Because all your friends know what happens after it's done Because at least one person was there to witness all the truth, son