Old Man Took
Written by Dewey Bunnell, ©1974
Found on Holiday, America Live, Encore: More Greatest Hits, America In Concert (95), and Highway.

For the last time
I watched Old Man Took bait his hook
And then throw his line
Pick up his wine

He's a friend of mine
Known him all my life and his wife
'Neath the swayin' pine
And the clingin' vine
Just before he left

He said now young man
Take good care don't let the bugs bite
Please make sure to say a word at night
For all your brothers feeling blue
Blue, blue, blue
All the time

So I stayed awhile
Took my tea alone, called it home
Like a playing child
Running wild

Heard a bluejay call
Said we got you now
Hope you bow
To the old man's word
I'm sure you heard
Just before he left

He said now young man
Take good care don't let the bugs bite
Please make sure to say a word at night
For all your brothers feeling blue
Blue, blue, blue
All the time

Now young man
Take good care don't let the bugs bite
Please make sure to say a word at night
For all your brothers feeling blue
Feeling blue
Feeling blue
Feeling blue
Feeling blue
Feeling blue
Feeling blue
Feeling blue
Feeling blue ...

Highway Highlight (from the box set booklet) Bunnell's "Old Man Took" was also rooted in actual experience. "That's based on a real person," he says. "My brother and I used to do a lot of fishing in this swampy back bay when we lived in Biloxi, Missippi. There was this old guy who had a shack and a dock, and he sold bait. We'd go down there, and he'd be listening to the radio or reading the paper, drinking wine. He had an old, yellowing certificate on the wall saying that he had been a detective once. We'd fish off his dock. I'm not sure he had a wife--that might've been me just completing a picture. The last time we came back there, he wasn't living there anymore. That's a song that I'd put in the Top 10 of the songs I've written. George's strings are beautiful on that."