Lucky Mud: Music

One Step Behind

(Lucky Mud)

2008-12-01

Michael McKinney

I wrote the first verse and chorus to this song many, many years ago; but it was only last year, sitting in a house in the West of Ireland, watching a cold rain beat at the glass, that I finally found the simple words for the final farewell to my daddy.

When in my dreams
I think back to my daddy
I see just a smile
And two hard working hands
His tools piled in the Model-A
He'd laugh and tell us all, "Someday
We'll have the time to sit back
We'll have a way to get back
To a place where we can just
Enjoy the land"

So we'd pack up
And away we'd go
To a place we'd never been before
Looking for a vision
Only daddy knew
We'd settle down
And make a home
He'd work his fingers
To the bone
But we'd always leave
Within a year or two

But who knows what kind
Of dreams daddy had?
What were the visions
He kept locked within his mind
As he took us everywhere
Trying to catch up
To the Good Life
Even though he always stayed
One step behind

I was still a boy
When the doctor
Came into the room
To say "he's gone"
Could not believe
My daddy died
There was no time
To say goodbye
And I reckoned
It was time
That he'd moved on

'Cause who knows
What kind of dreams
Daddy had?
What were the visions
He kept locked
Within his mind
As he took us everywhere
Tryin' to catch up
To the Good Life
Even though he always stayed
One step behind