The Ballad Of Chris McCandless

He was out on the highway smiling.
A mystic in torn blue jeans.
The kid left his trust fund to come out walking.
He hitched across this country
With a backpack and a head full of dreams.
Could've sworn he heard the earth a'talkin',
talkin'...

“Sometimes,” he said, “don't it feel
like the concrete's closing in?
We're putting bricks on the horizon...”

Was he chasing fool's gold,
Or a holy man walking
a dirt road till the end?
I hitched a ride with Chris McCandless.
I stepped in the wild of a dream.

The horizon in South Dakota
is an ocean of harvest grain.
In a dusty silo we found work for the taking.
We'd hitched up from California,
But he never told me his real name.
Never told me what past he was out here shaking.
We're all shaking something.

“Sometimes,” he said, “don't it feel
like technology's closing in?
We're raising towers on the horizon...”

Was he chasing fool's gold
Or a holy man walking
A dirt road till the end?
I hitched a ride with Chris McCandless
I stepped in the wild of a dream—

A stone,
A path,
A river of glass,

The night sky—
Can you see stars from wherever you are?
Whereever you are?

In a broken school bus they found him
In the heart of the Alaska range
The journey ends
When the heart stops beating—
Time is fleeting

was he chasin fool's gold,
Or a holy man walking a dirt road
till the end?
I don't know, but
I hitched a ride with Chris McCandless,
I stepped in the wild with Chris McCandless,
And I felt alive with Chris McCandless.
I was wide awake in the dream,
the dream,
the dream.