The Street Kid Of The Seventies

He has fought his own wars with himself he knows about despair
And he knows of life in the rat race in the bigger World out there
A street kid of the seventies the years have left him gray
He doesn't look forward to the future he takes life day by day.

He never talks of his childhood years and little doubt that he
Wants to black out his awful past as a bad memory
His mum left him to live with her new love when his dad was serving Jail time
And at thirteen he was on the streets the streets that led him to crime.

A homeless boy of thirteen he fell in with bad company
And he was put in a reform school with others such as he
To be released at eighteen in life to make his own way
For every crime he did commit a price he's had to pay.

He lives the life of the hobo he moves from town to town
The lust of the wander in his heart forbids him to settle down
There's always one more road to travel on and one more town to see
To wander till the day he die now seems his destiny.

Were he born in the leafy suburb in a supportive family
with kind and loving parents how different life for him might be
But the street kids of broken homes in the poor suburbs are never rare
And life for many it would seem is anything but fair.

He has never physically harmed anyone though he pilfered as a boy
But that was only to survive one might say to get by
Before a justice committed him to a reform school
To be disciplined by people who to him were rather cruel.

The street kid of the seventies he has never had a wife
And he must have worked in a thousand jobs in his nomadic life
A month or two in any job for him is a long stay
There always is another town somewhere up the highway.

In this town by the ocean he will not be seen again
With his shoulder bag of his life's belongings he is walking to meet the train
He did not make a friend or an enemy here and to none he said goodbye
And the wanderlust will be in him until the day he die.