I remember yesterday   When I'd sit and watch the hound dogs play   Howlin' at the China moon   Now yesterday is a busted balloon   Life was young and things were easy   Days were short, nights were warm   Times were good   Hate was shallow   Love was crazy and I had it in my marrow   And I swear that I've seen your face   Somewhere back in that time and in that place   Do you remember?   The old house stood like World War II   With just two rooms and a hall to be used   The lady was mean, just slightly unclean   With a heart of cold silver and gold   The kitchen smelled of kerosene   Ceiling hung down, unveiled the rotted beams   And the man, they said, his work could of hung in the Louvre   Now he sits around all day because his left arm won't move   He was a master of the art of electricity   He lectured on tubes and circuitry   He was self-employed, but he could never see his way into the light   He had a room full of switches and dials and lights   And a head full of clouds, and eyes full of sight   And when it got dark I could hear his heart beat   Like a mother in the night   She stood like a guardian, ready to give everything up   If I had asked for a sword and her blood in a cup   But there was just a time when I asked for too much   She sighed because she could not give it   We used to sit beneath the tree   Just the lady, the radio man, and me   And I think it was the winter of '63   The man went away and let us be   It was early on an August day that the lady decided she too must go away   For her heart it seems could not pay the price for what her body was buying   I came home from school and I found the note   I went into the kitchen and lit the old stove   With senses set on overload, I turned on the TV   I spent the rest of the afternoon   Watching all my old cartoons   Through the hall and across the porch   The sun surrendered like a crying torch.