Lackawanna Rail

WRITER'S NOTES:

As a young father, I had put my guitar away for many years.  I had started a family, and that took precedence over everything else in my life.  I had tried to keep up with playing for quite a while.  I held onto the dream of someday becoming a star.  But I realized that I needed to support my family.  So I concentrated on my career in the general workplace.

I also had a problem with my son, in that every time I pulled my guitar out of it's case, that little boy would try to play it as well.  If I didn't let him, he would cry, and then I would have to put it down to get him to stop.  This frustrated the dickens out of me.  So I ended up, just not pulling the guitar out at all. 

When I finally did pull it out again, I was feeling old.  Too old to become that Rock Star that I had always dreamed of becoming.  Too old to get that big record contract and go on world wide tours. 

My wife felt really bad about that, and she encouraged me to hold onto the dream and helped me to find some quiet time to spend on my music.  But even though I now had a chance to play, I knew deep down that I wasn't going to become the superstar that I dreamed of.

So I sat down one day and realized that it wasn't so bad.  I may not be playing at Yankee Stadium, and taking in millions of dollars from my music, but I had something worth just as much.  And I could be just as happy just being a husband and a father. 

So I wrote this song to tell my family (and anyone else that would listen) that I was ok with the role that I was in.  That I still had the talent to write the songs, but just wasn't doing it, and it was alright.  I didn't have to do that to be happy. 

I still held onto the dream of course.  I still wanted to be that star.  And my family supported me and even encouraged me in it.  And even though I won't ever be Mick Jagger, my family always saw me as a star.  That's what really counts.