Bob Seger - Turn The Page

The radio alarm went off at the usual much too early hour. It normally takes about 30 minutes before my brain is lucid enough to process the need to get up and prepare for the new day. Not that time, though. The song playing on the radio grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go. I didn’t know the voice that was singing or the song but the “Here I am, on the road again …” stayed with me throughout the day.

In the evening I went to pick up my friend Carry, we were planning to meet up with her husband David and some other friends for a movie night. “Here I am, on the road again …” was still playing in my mind and the first thing I asked her was whether she knew the song.
My rendering probably wasn’t too accurate and I held no hope whatsoever to track down the song from a few notes and a few words of lyrics. Carry went to the phone and called David and told me to sing that line again, so I did. David merely answered with a non-committal “Hm, let me think about that …”

 

I don’t recall the movie we went to see, I was too distracted. When we met David at the theater he had handed me a CD with the words, “Here’s your mystery song.”

 

“Turn the Page” still is one of the staples of any one of my road trip music collections. …

On a long and lonesome highway east of Omaha
You can listen to the engine moanin' out his one note song
You can think about the woman or the girl you knew the night before
But your thoughts will soon be wandering the way they always do
When you're ridin' sixteen hours and there's nothin' there to do
And you don't feel much like ridin', you just wish the trip was through

Here I am On the road again
There I am Up on the stage
Here I go Playin' star again
There I go Turn the page

Well you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you as you're shakin' off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you but you just want to explode
Most times you can't hear 'em talk, other times you can
All the same old cliches, "Is that a woman or a man?"
And you always seem outnumbered, you don't dare make a stand

Here I am On the road again
There I am Up on the stage
Here I go Playin' star again
There I go Turn the page

Out there in the spotlight you're a million miles away
Every ounce of energy you try to give away
As the sweat pours out your body like the music that you play
Later in the evening as you lie awake in bed
With the echoes from the amplifiers ringin' in your head
You smoke the day's last cigarette, rememberin' what she said

Here I am On the road again
There I am Up on the stage
Here I go Playin' star again
There I go Turn the page

Here I am On the road again
There I am Up on the stage
Here I go Playin' star again
There I go Turn the page
There I go There I go

Songwriters WOOD, TONY / WEEKS, BARRY / BRADY, JIM
Published by Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.