Two Dollars Short (R-E) Lyrics

It was many years ago

I was traveling the Northern roads

I got stranded and broke down

In a small Montana town

I phoned home to help me out

And I stayed at a halfway house

That was trying to save my soul

Till that money arrived from my folks

It was there I first saw him sit

Half serious and half lit

Singing songs of Michael's boat

With a bottle concealed in his coat

He looked at me with eyes from the grave

Through a face badly needing a shave

We talked of his life living alone

And I remember his words

Kind a like my own

He said son

Now I see

Your ways differ from me

But I must overcome my fears

That's why I'm sitting here

Getting drunk on this port

And I know

There's a better ro-hoad

But I ain't found it yet

And this is all you get

When you're two dollars short

Through years that swiftly ran

I forgot all about that man

Then one day I was thrown in jail

And there he was inside my cell

Picked up for a vagrant bum

They were holding him for the run

So once again we talked for hours

Till the dawn showed through the bars

He said son

Now I see

Your ways differ from me

But I must overcome my fears

That's why I'm sitting here

To be arraigned in some court

And I know

There's a better road

But I ain't found it yet

And this is all you get

When you're two dollars short

After breakfast came along

I kind a sensed something was wrong

Then the old man fell on the floor

And stopped moving by the door

As they were taking him to intensive care

They let me out

To go with him there

In the ambulance he tried and he tried

To tell me one more time before he died

He said

Now I see

Your ways differ from me

But I must overcome my fears

That's why I'm dying here

With no family to support

And I know

There's a better ro-hoad

But I ain't found it yet

And this is all you get

When you're two dollars short

At his funeral alone I stood

And I thought

What a shame for a man so good

To have

Done all the things he did

Yet he

Kept his talents hid

And I tried to correlate

Between his and my own fate

It didn't take a long time to see

He was an awful lot like me

Now I see

What I can come to be

If I don't overcome my fears

I'll just go year to year

Without any better resort

And I know

There's a better ro-hoad

And I will find it yet

Or else all I will get

Is just two dollars short