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Home
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Halfway to Heaven
Halfway to Heaven
by Harry Chapin
There's no tick tock on your electric clock
But still your life runs down.
I'm halfway to heaven and my home in Forest Hills
It's halfpast eleven and I've got some time to kill.
I missed my bus connection 'cause my train got in too late
And I'm forced into reflection by this half hour wait.
Now I have been a straight man and I've played it by the rules
I been a good man, a good husband, yes a good old fashioned fool.
I have a fine wife and two children just like everybody's got
But after fifteen years of marriage the fires don't burn too hot.
You see someone's played a trick on me.
They set me up so perfectly
Gave me their morality
And then changed the rules they set for me.
Someone must be laughing now,
Though it don't seem funny somehow,
How the world's accepting now
What they once would not allow
Back in my younger days.
The world has changed in so many ways.
My mother once said to me so many years ago now
Don't you touch those bad girls, so I never had girls
Until I met my Mary when we married.
My Mary then had my two sons
My life as a lover it was already done
It was over before it had really begun.
You see someone played a trick on me.
They sent this little girl to me,
She is my new secretary
And she's something to see.
She's a nice girl, but it's a young world
And she lives her life so free, and she sure gets thru to me
She brings her pad into my office, she wears a sweater and a skirt
And somewhere deep inside of me something starts to hurt.
She's wearing nothing underneath, and I can see what's there to see
And she smiles and says, "You wanted me?" and I'd have to agree.
You know how much I want her,
And I know that I could have her.
I know I could, I know she would
Make love to me, so wonderfully.
God damn, I'm one horny mixed up mixture of a man.
In my head all my life I've been a sinner,
And in my bed with just my wife I'm still a beginner,
But tomorrow night I'm taking that little girl out to dinner!
There's no tick tock on your electric clock
But still your life runs down.
Layout, design, images, and user-contributed text are © Copyright 1996-2017 HarryChapin.com: The Harry Chapin Archive.
"Oh, if a man tried to take his time on earth and prove before he died what one man's life could be worth, I wonder what would happen to this world?" -- Harry Chapin, 1942-1981.
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The Latest Release
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Sniper & Other Love Songs
[iTunes]
In 1972, Harry released
Sniper & Other Love Songs.
Thirty years would pass before the album would ever reach the CD format. Sniper was finally re-released in June, 2002.
Originally given a working title of Sweet City Suite, the album tells the story of various characters one might run into in
a city. The album features the original studio versions of Chapin classics "A Better Place to Be" and "Circle." But
perhaps more importantly (as those songs are already well-distributed on compilation CDs), the album features seemingly
lost Chapin stories, including "And the Baby Never Cries," "Burning Herself," "Barefoot Boy," and "Woman Child."
Sniper is for the seasoned Chapin fan. New fans would do better to check out
Greatest Stories
Live. But for Chapin fans who have reached the level of the
Dance Band on the Titanic album, this is the next step. Slightly over-produced and having a little of the "forced"
feel that some of Harry's studio albums possess, this album does not capture the powerfully live Harry Chapin. Nonetheless,
it captures Harry's great iconoclastic songwriting--Harry takes the story song to new heights here. But the album works best
for those ready for it; don't buy it until you are ready to appreciate it!
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