You Can't Look Back
( California Bloodline)

Then here they come, E.A. Stuart in the wagon right behind
Sitting straight and proud and he's driving her stone blind
And would you look at her
Oh, she never looked finer or went better than today
It's E.A. Stuart and the old Campaigner, "Sweetheart On Parade"
And the people cheered
Why I even saw a grown man break right down and cry
And you know it was just a little while later that old E.A. Stuart died
-- John Stewart, Mother Country

John Stewart died the other day,
Blessed with a stroke
Than Alzheimer's seven years from now.
His writing lives in mine,
The California bloodlines and chill winds
That blow in from the pacific coast
Down through the San Joaquin at night.
He was young,
I was younger by a decade,
When he broke from the Kingston Trio
And set off across America.
I met him in seventy
When we tried to defeat Reagan
Running for his second term as governor;
We lost but remembered our roots,
The clack clack clack of Bobby's train
Going slow through the states
On its way to his final stop in Arlington.
Bobby's gone, John's gone,
And sometimes it seems only
I remember.

Airdream Believer

John Stewart
1939-2008