Turning Fifty         © Doug McIntyre 2008

He drove a van with flashing lights
Came when they called for help every day and night
He got a call from an old friend
It’s time to do what we always planned

We’re gonna turn the big ‘Five-O’
The Harley is tuned, she’s raring to go
Right across the USA on Highway 50
It’s gonna be great!

Chorus

Him and his mate on two fine machines
Like one of those pictures in a magazine
There’s no place he’d rather be
He was King of the Highway when he turned fifty!

The open plains, the mountains high
Ride into a sunset that can make you cry
Another town, a few cold beers
Meeting new faces you’d think you had known for years

The sun comes up on a brand-new day
Cruise a little further down the highway
Well he’s been blessed and he’s shed a few tears
Now he’s looking straight ahead to the next fifty years

Chorus

I ran into him just the other night
He was driving his van with red and blue flashing lights
I said to Joe how did it feel?
Well he looked at me and said it was just unreal!

Chorus

When he turned fifty….

The Man who Might Have been

I'm staring up at the honour role of the war to end all wars

I spot his name in a sea of youth who died on far-off shores

And I'm so proud as I left my son high, I can see he's keen

To place a poppy by the name of the man who might have been

He grew up in a little town out on the western plains

Traded a plough for a rifle, adventure burned in his veins

And I was raised on the legend of someone I'd never seen

And I wished he'd have lived to meet me, this man who might have been

Chorus:

Ah, five foot-eleven, brown hair and blue eyes, cut down in his prime

Just a young man in the desert sands on a horse in Palestine

The years have rolled on since they sailed away wearing a slouch-hat and greens

Ah, lest we forget, ah lest we forget, that man who might have been!

What became of the girl he kissed that day he went away?

And the little mother who mourned her sons until her dying day?

The cold wind blows, the ploughs are still, and they can't raise a football team

Cos the little town has lost too many of the men who might have been...

Chorus