James Taylor

Never die young



We were ring-around-the-rosy children They were circles around the sun Never give up, never slow down Never grow old, never ever die young Synchronized with the rising moon Even with the evening star They were true love written in stone They were never alone, they were never that far apart And we who couldn't bear to believe they might make it We got to close our eyes Cut up our losses into doable doses Ration our tears and sighs You could see them on the street on a Saturday night Everyone used to run them down They're a little too sweet, they're a little too tight Not enough tough for this town We couldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole No, it didn't seem to rattle at all They were glued together body and soul That much more with their backs up against the wall Oh, hold them up, hold them up Never do let them fall Prey to the dust and the rust and the ruin That names us and claims us and shames us all I guess it had to happen someday soon wasn't nothing to hold them down They would rise from among us like a big baloon Take the sky, forsake the ground Oh, yes, other hearts were broken Yeah, other dreams ran dry But our golden ones sail on, sail on To another land beneath another sky