Lyrics Retrospective - Tom Paxton

Now, when the paint was dry,
And the colors set,
It was painful yet
To an honest eye,

Here, where the walls were hung
With the sweat of years
The familiar fears
Since the hands were young.

Now in a battered chair,
With his tea gone cold,
And his hands grown old
He will sit and stare.

Here where his life is hung
With the blood in view,
There's been nothing new
Since the hands were young.

Schoolboys laugh in the streets below,
Laughter cruel at the long ago.
Fingers point through the bitter years
And the bitter tears.

Now when the paint was dry
And the die was cast,
It was clear at last
It was all a lie.

Red never left his hand,
And the blue was wrong
With the green too strong,
Never what he planned.

Now in a rumpled bed
With a night to kill,
He'll be painting still,
If he isn't dead.

Now he can only stare
As the old dream falls
At the mocking walls,
And the walls are bare.