They would say to me
Don't go in the world and play
It's bad company
Let him grow and let him wait
Just to find out what it was to be free
Growing up I've had my fun
And I know it's got to be
Are you free or in a tomb
Let me in,
I feel I want to cry.
Oh the road is long
Come on back, back.
Mind your manners
Or you're dead
Mind the cars cos you've got school on Monday
Who is he I know not what
Something mummy said one Sunday.
It's something I need plenty of.
Oh! I wish I'd died and never lived a day.
Tell me what to do and how
Take me back and sing my cares away.
Oh! the road is there
Oh that road is there
Come on back, back.
Rainy pain has left me now.
Think of what my people used to say.
Which to choose and which is right
Guide me to a place where I can stay.
Hide myself far from the storm
Sleep and love will keep my mind at rest.
Love you all and keep you all my life.
Oh the road is there
Come on back, back
What a sweeping epic this song is...tackles a powerful universal theme in a wholly emotional, successful manner.
I'm sure everyone can relate to this song, being told what to do by your parents, feeling pain and misery, but knowing that you love them and keeping that inside.
'Mind the cars cos you've got school on Monday' is my favourite line, because my parents told me meaningless things like that all the time.
This is one of the best epics of the 70s.
Such a masterpiece. Budgie should be in the rock n' roll hall of fame, even though the hall of fame is a joke.
Having been a song Burke Shelley had penned at sixteen, he states how it's got a good moral to it. "They are the figures who warn you about things when you are young. You find out later in life that your parents told the truth."