From the recording The "Next!" Album
I wrote this song in 1979, when I was playing in Grande Prairie, Alberta. It was a boomtown then — oil money moving fast, nights were scary roudy, with a strange mix of freedom and loneliness that hung in the air. Most of us were far from home. Tough, restless, a little unhinged.
There was cash in our pockets and trouble close at hand. It was the first time I tried cocaine. For a minute it felt like rocket fuel — I joked, if I had more of that, I could write a whole album this afternoon.
But what I remember more now is the homesickness. The bravado. The way exploration and escape can look like the same thing when you’re young.
This song carries that moment — the noise, the hunger, the illusion of invincibility — and the quiet cost that always follows.
Lyrics
I got, No sign of fever
I bin every place I wanted to be
Ain't got all kinds of money but I got what I really need
I keep two bottles of wiskey on hand
and I don’t think it really shows
and I got me a secret
me and heaven only knows
And I tried to find a highway
and I found a lonely one
where I can do things my way
like I’ve done things all along
Where I’ve left the ones behind me
for a lady with a Rose
she can keep my secrets
that me and heaven only knows
with the headlights on the highway
I know that I could never stay
There’s a long line of sorrow
headin back down the other way
stayin’ put is easier said
than done and I supose
that I stayed as long as I have
me and heaven only knows
and I’m drivin down that highway
into the setting sun
where I can do things my way
and I can get along
I’ve left the ones behind me
for a lady with a Rose
she can keep my secrets
me and heaven only knows
down that highway
down that highway
so you said I should write
to tell you that I’m ok
for every two that finds this road
there’s one that decides to stay
it don’t matter how high the water
or which way the river flows
cause I’ll find me a reason
me and heaven only knows