The Greatest Song Ever Written

In the fall of 1974, I'd been in Nashville about a year or more
With poems in a sack, couldn't catch a break
My guitar looked like a busted orange crate
I'd bought it off a boy whose name was Billy Hobbs
Who slept with a snake in a basement garage
Of a cold water flat on South Tate Street
Where the rednecks mixed with the gay city freaks
Where the Carolina pines grow tall and endure
Where the dogwood blooms, where the bright leaves cured
I looked Billy in the eye and said, "Man, you could have it."
Left Tobacco Road behind, but I kept the habit
Soon winter time came to the bar where I was sitting
Temperature dropped and the snow started spitting
The door flew open to Mule and Brink's Tavern
Time stood still as my thoughts started gathering
She was tall and slender, but friendly and polite
She took a seat beside me, much to my delight
Said, "My name is Zelia, some say I'm a ghost.
I don't mean to intrude, and I don't mean to boast,
But I hail from the northeast coast of Great Britain.
I've come to Nashville to write the greatest song ever written."
Then she gazed in my eyes and looked me up and down
As the bartender splashed out a weak, seven and crown
"So what about you?", she smiled while inquiring
I said, "I'm here to drink the greatest whiskey you're buying.
If I got to listen to all your lofty ambitions, I'd prefer to be drunk.
Or did I fail to mention? I've got no desire to become rich or famous.
I'm just here to compose a song that might change us."
She tossed back her hair like the diva she was
Smiled one more time like a ghost always does
Threw up her hands and said, "That's not enough.
Our hearts will need more as the going gets rough.
A song that will heal us, keep us inspired,
Make us sing when we're weary, make us dance when we're tired."
Well, I looked back at her with a skeptical eye.
I said, "I'll think about it. But in the meantime,
Knock yourself out, Miss Coast of Great Britain.
You go ahead and write the greatest song ever written."
A year or two passed, then another year flew
The first thing I knew, it'd been a decade or two
I'd see her around town, tease her like a friend.
"You got that song finished? You got it in a can?"
And she'd laugh at the memory. Then shoot me a stare
And say, "No, not quite yet, but I know it's out there."
And her songs were beautiful, she wrote like a fiend
She was a writer's writer and a publisher's dream
Tune after tune, hit after hit,
She got rich over time, if I'm forced to admit
Then one day, she quietly cashed out,
Left Nashville behind in a cloud of self-doubt
So one sunny afternoon in the middle of March,
I was stringing my guitar out on my front porch
As her words, like a message automatically fed
I could hear her sweet voice ringing in my head
It was then I realized, without ever quitting,
Just how I could write the greatest song ever written
So I took out my pen, be damned or be wrong,
And wrote down the words to this very song
Then sure as I'm standing, or sure as I'm sitting,
I titled it The Greatest Song Ever Written
Now some say I cheated, devised my own scheme,
But I say I gave life to someone else's dream
And if a song gets recorded, by luck or by guts,
She'll get the credit, but I'll get the bucks
And forever I'll be known, till the day that I'm gone,
As the man who wrote the world's greatest song
So write it I did, and even though I didn't,
Still I managed to pen The Greatest Song Ever Written
Check the library congress, go look it up,
Read it and weep while I'm passing the cup
But to tell you the truth, with a wink and a smile,
It's just a matter of time, it's just a matter of style