(ŠGreat Uncle Helmer 1996)

Squeaking on the window
The heater up and gone
Drums and strings and voices
The road goes ever on

Two beside me, Civil War
The van is headed south
Words and music twine themselves
In someone else's mouth

In the seat ahead of me an old time lover's friend
And a sour satisfaction opens up my head

Up and on the road before
the clock has turned around
We're headed to the southern sun
and born unto the ground

I'm far behind the camera's flash
Conversation's dull
Draining all my energy
So awfully awfully dull

Foggy windows, sodden fields, fast-decaying snow
A change in pitch and I can see the Old Man there below

"The bourgeoisie," the bourgeois man
complains pretentiously
And how should I when he has died
contempt or sympathy?

Three-lane highway turns to two
The cracks are wide and long
My head is full of wasted thought
My ears just catch a song

The road goes ever on, and when it stops the van turns round
We'll watch the scenery roll until we're born unto the ground we're born unto the ground
The road goes ever on my friend, the road goes ever on
Born of nothing rough and low, oh, oh, oh
The road goes ever on my friend, the goes ever on
watch the thunder roll on up the sky the lightning flash
Oh don't you know the road goes ever on and on and na nana nanana
watch the water roll on up the windshield, yeah
The road goes ever on, goes ever on my friend
We'll watch the scenery roll my friend while
The road goes ever on, my friend
The road goes ever on

Comments
The Tolkien allusion would appear to lie only in the title of this song. On the FAQ of their web site, the band members connect the lyrical content to an old man who appears on the album cover: "Who is that guy on the cover of Old Man Will Travel? The man is a professor emeritus of German at a small midwestern liberal arts college. He hitchhikes occasionally and practices some unique environmental activism. Artistically speaking, he is the "old man" in such songs as "The Road Goes Ever On"