Standard (EADGBE)
Lather was thirty years old today,
they took away all of his toys.
His mother sent newspaper clippings to him,
about his old friends who'd stopped being boys.
There was Harwitz E. Green, just turned thirty three,
his leather chair waits at the bank.
And Sargent Dow Jones, twenty seven years old,
commanding his very own tank.
But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do,
to lie about nude in the sand
Drawing pictures of mountains that look like bumps,
and thrashing the air with his hands.
But wait, oh Lather's productive you know,
he produces the finest of sound
Putting drumsticks on either side of his nose,
snorting the best licks in town;
but that's all over
Lather was thirty years old today,
and Lather came foam from his tongue.
He looked at me eyes wide and plainly said,
is it true that I'm no longer young? (mommy?)
And the children call him famous,
what the old men call insane
And sometimes he's so nameless,
that he hardly knows which game to play;
which words to say
And I should have told him, "no, you're not old."
And I should have let him go on, smiling, baby wide.