Golden Light Cafe
Here's how this song came about.
I was traveling round trip from Las Vegas to Nashville and was a little low on funds. So I had to choose between a room or food this particular day. Waking up in my car in a truck stop outside of Amarillo, TX I decided to grab a bite to eat.
I walked into this diner, a 50's diner where neither the wallpaper nor the waitresses seemed to have changed since the 50's. But like most greasy spoon diners along the interstate, the food was solid. There were these old pictures of employees and customers tacked up on a board in one area. I kept thinking about those pictures after I left.
Fast forward a week later. I'm on the back end of my round trip. I got into Vegas pretty late. Abuzz with the rumblings of the road and too much truck stop coffee, I decided to stop in for a nightcap at a late night haunt.
There was a bartender behind the bar who was really witty and funny. We got into conversation. He talked about how he had always thought that he would be a comedian. He always thought that he would be on tv, ...thought he would be, thought he could be. Yet here he was apparently in at the same spot he'd been for years still talking about what might have been.
I told him that he wasn't dead yet parted and I hope to not see him again if I ever come back through.
I left now abuzz with a cocktail and too much coffee. So inspired by the conversation and the diner, I wrote this song.
(Menu from the diner)
GOLDEN LIGHT CAFÉ
Carl John
A porcelain doll is beautiful but at the age of 43
Tan lines from a neon sign left her faded with her dreams
She wasn't gonna rust there like the city limit sign
Stuck somewhere in neutral between the bourbon and the wine
But time goes by getting ready to fly living too afraid to fall
And in an autumn frost a whole life lost
Just a photo on the wall
You let your dreams fall apart and it seems
They slowly fade away
Cause that clock just sticks down on Route 66
At the Golden Light Café
Now a bar stool dreamer the other side of prime
Old regrets are all that's left clouding up her mind
Life not spent on living, a heart that's put on pause
Gone from all that might have been
To has been who never was
Cause time goes by getting ready to fly living too afraid to fall
And in an autumn frost a whole life lost
Just a photo on the wall
You let your dreams fall apart and it seems
They slowly fade away
Cause that clock just sticks down on Route 66
At the Golden Light Café
Watching the time tick past
You find out much too late
As all of your tomorrows become your yesterday's
Cause time goes by getting ready to fly living too afraid to fall
And in an autumn frost a whole life lost
Just a photo on the wall
You let your dreams fall apart and it seems
They slowly fade away
Cause that clock just sticks down on Route 66
At the Golden Light Café
