Sara Messenger © 1993
When I was sixteen I left my troubled home
To go off with a boy and make it on my own
We worked split shifts of sixteen hours six days a week
Then walked the ten miles home on our sore busted feet
We were hitchhikers
And it hurt everytime someone turned a blind eye
We were panhandlers, just getting by
We were panhandlers, we were hitchhikers
We were harbingers of the new age
Now I’m sitting here parked in my automobile
Observing the scene as the world is revealed
There’s a man on the steps with a hat and a sign
And he flashes me a smile of the sincerest kind
But a man passes by in a white shirt and tie, yelling,
"Buddy, why don’t you just get off your hide?"
And don’t make me feel guilty, ‘cause I’m not to blame
It’s your fault, get a job, it’s a damn cryin’ shame!”
"Don’t you think that I’ve tried?
Look around you and admit something’s badly awry
And as for work, are you blind, can’t you see I’ve a job?
I’m working nine to five, in fact today I’ve gone into overtime
As a panhandler
My spot’s on the steps of the Temple Emanuel
I’m a panhandler, wish me well."
As the day came to end he rose to his feet
He’d just enough to buy some time and a little to eat
But just then as I saw he was rising to go
Up wheeled a man in a chair who wanted to know
"Brother, can you just spare a dime?"
And he stopped in his tracks, and to my amazed eyes
He gave not a dollar, and his expression was glad
He gave not a penny, but all that he had
To another panhandler
Right there on the steps of the Temple Emanuel
Another panhandler wished him well
There but for the grace of God go you and I
There but for the grace of God go panhandlers, hitchhikers,
Prophets and poets and harbingers of the new age
And we are panhandlers, we are hitchhikers
We are harbingers of the new age
