Look Backward on Your Future, Look Forward to Your Past

Richard was a stout-hearted man, he'd been through the bulk of his life
 He no longer spoke to most of his folks and was abandoned by his wife
 Rolling down the road one night alone, he came upon a terrible sight
 An older woman lay bleeding in the road and her screams about filled the night
 She said: Look backwards on your future and look forward to your past
 Everything upon which you base your faith is made of vapour and it won't last
 It's only everything in our shared reality that keeps our souls held fast
 So, look backwards on your future and look forward to your past
 Richard woke the next morning and spoke, he said, there's something I feel I must do
 He called up all of his natural born kids and all his money from the bank he withdrew
 He changed his mind about everything he'd ever felt about what's bad and good
 He fixed a loud-speaker to the roof of his car and he sang to everyone he could
 He sang: Look backwards on your future and look forward to your past
 Get your sense of time from the ancient Hawaiians, your sense of self from the hydrogen blast
 You'll be what came before, you were what is to come, he bellowed out to everyone he passed
 So, look backwards on your future and look forward to your past
 Richard got arrested in Laredo, he was causing too much mischief for the sisters
 He spent an evening in the clink and then went home and turned to drinking – gave his all, yes, he was a double-fister
 The issue was the kind of past he had behind him, most of what he'd spent were wasted days
 The history he faced was an ocean made of empty and a destiny you wouldn't want to save
 Still, I say: Look backwards on your future and look forward to your past
 If you haven't gone and made a mess of yourself you just might end up with the last laugh
 Every little dot of presence and thought for another will give your life class
 So, look backwards on your future and look forward to your past
 This particular assemblage of molecules and memories some day soon may just soon run out of gas
 So, look backwards on your future and look forward to your past