Lyrics

My Old Friend
Words and Music: Mark David Manders

Me and my old friend now we go back a while
Back when distance was measured with footsteps instead of highway signs and miles
And back behind my parent’s house there ran an old, mud-bottom creek
Where as soon as that last school bell rang we’d hurry off to meet
And we’d sit down on a catwalk with our fishing poles in hand
Casting out lures and dreams and promises about the world that lay at hand
And it wasn’t the love of fishing that kept us out there in all kinds of weather
It was more the peaceful satisfaction of two friends just being together
My old friend’s got an easy kind of style
A wandering soul and a welcome home smile
I can’t imagine just how things might have been
Growing up without my old friend
By the time we reached high school we began to slip away
He joined the varsity football team and I chose not to play
And my first night in a college dorm I was feeling all alone
I searched my pockets for a quarter and headed down the hallway for the phone
And as I rounded the corner at the end of the hall who should I see?
The face of my old friend and he was smiling back at me
The next thing I knew we were soul mates once again
Living life out on our own, just me and my old friend
Chorus
Now we did all the things young college kids like to do
Exploring our new-found freedoms and missing a class or two
And I guess somewhere down the line I fell off the deep end
I picked up a few bad habits and I lost track of my old friend
And I was back home working for the summer when the bad news hit my door
That his only brother had passed away in a car wreck the night before
And on the day of the funeral I sat alone in the last pew
My tears flowed for his family and I wondered what they’d do
And I prayed to God for an answer to help me understand
How it took the loss of some one so special to bring me back to my old friend
Chorus
Now the days slip by me a little quicker than the year before
My old friend’s got a family of his own and a boy who’s almost four
And hardly a day goes by that we don’t talk together on the phone
About the times when we were kids and how the time has flown
And I guess it’s come full circle in a round about kind of way
Our paths have crossed so many times they’ve finally learned to stay
Chorus