When We Were Young

[Spoken Intro]

I'm also always getting this, uh, dream that I'm a headless torso in Jeffrey Dahmer's refrigerator. Um, I don't really think there's a performer alive who hasn't had that dream at one time or another, and that was sorta the basis for this next song, this whole idea that, uh, you think there's something wrong with you but really it's experiences that everybody's had. This is a song called "When We Were Young"

[Song]

Did you ever have a dream as a child?
That you were flying through the air
In your underwear
And you landed in a playground filled with boys and girls
And they scoffed at you and they jeered
As your eyes welled up in tears
And they spat on you, and they told you that you smell?
Well me, I knew that dream, I knew it well

And did you ever know a man as a child?
Who would walk you home from school
And he'd let you swim in his pool
And he'd always wear his raincoat in the summertime
And he stunk of the cheapest brandy
But he always had lots of candy
And he'd give you some if you promised not to tell?
Well me, I knew that man, I knew him well

Oh say, summertime raincoat-wearing, candy-giving guy from my childhood
Where have you gone?
Did they finally take you away to that place
That's surrounded by barbed wire and gates
Where the people just make licence plates
Can it be no more
What it was before
When we were young?

Y'know what I mean?

And did you ever have a friend as a child?
Who lived underneath your bed
And they said it was all in your head
But you swore that you saw him laughing at night in your windowsill
And he had a long purple beard
And big floppy rabbit ears
And he would tell you to do things that you wouldn't ordinarily
Like light a fire, or play with guns
And when you asked him who he was
He said that he was an angel sent from hell?
Well me, I knew that friend, I knew him well

Oh say, purple-bearded, hell-sent, floppy-eared man from childhood
Where have you gone?
Take me away to that far off land
Where the children only eat ice-cream all day
And I promise you I will obey
Can it be no more
What it was before
When we were young?

Can it be no more
What it was before
When we were young?