As the sunday sun sets down on Rhino, Nevada
I'm not really a gambling man, but I'm quite partial to a flutter
And if you're playing Black Jack, they'll let you drink for free
And that sounds like a pretty good deal to me...
So I pull up to a table and I sing my first line
I get chatting to an old man, sat by my side
He can't quite place my accent and he asks me where I'm from
Like many before he thinks that I'm Australian.
I tell him I'm from England, from Essex, to be precise
We both lose a couple of hands and sing some more lines
He asks me what I'm doing, so far away from home
I tell him I've been singing on the road.
He asks me where I've been and what I've seen and what I might have learned
Travelling on that giant piece of dirt
I've seen the rivers and the mountains, the forests through the trees
I've seen the deserts and canyons, I've seen the tumble-weed
I watched the sunset of the west coast with sand between my toes
I've been East freezing my bollocks off in six inches of snow
I've seen the interstates and freeways from my rental car
Mostly, though, I've seen a lot of bars.
I've seen a few music venues and a shitton of bars
London got me JFK, Boston, Baltimore
To the American Visionary Art Museum down the Appalachian trail
To the suburbs of Atlanta and the Gainesville BBQ
Where I ended in a karaoke bar doing Jimmy Buffet tunes
Left onto the A10(?), the "Big Easy", New Orleans
I played a bit of washboard with my main [...] XP
I felt like Chris Christopherson, flat out and bet on rouge
When they let me sing some songs in the Red Dragon listening room
In fact I've been singing songs everywhere I stop
Somehow I'm calling this my job
I've heard the banjos and the trumpets, been to where the blues was born
Danced to dubstep and to punk rock and I shopped in record stores
I read the Great American Novel by the Great American Novelist
And give me half a chance I'll build myself a white picket fence
Cause I love the American culture, its music, books and poetry
And the wonderful Americans that I've met on my journey
FLASHBACK to the casino and the old man he said: "Son,
Sounds like you've seen more of this cuntry than I have ever done.
I come from Salt Lake City, that's where I was born and raised;
I still live in Utah and I barely left the state.
But you still haven't told me what you've learned -
Sounds like you're just driving round and getting drunk.
And it's not like you're any good at Black Jack, either -
You haven't won a dollar since you've been here."
I've seen casinos and the churches, the prisons and the shopping malls,
The ballparks and the stadiums, the junk-food drive-throughs,
The fast cars and the tea bars, the broken traffic lights,
The homeless and forgotten folk, Downtown late at night,
And I've seen the foreign policy, the oily, bloody hands,
I've seen the police brutality sweep across the land
And if there's one thing that I've learned
It's that a dollar costs more than it's worth
I didn't come in here to win -
I just came here for a drink.