Joshua was an old man

his beard like mountain snow

and when I was a boy we'd have jam sessions

I'd sneak off to old Sharptop

with my guitar I would go

when I should have been at school

learnin' my lesson

and I'd sip a little moonshine

and I'd smoke a corncob pipe

and we'd pick all day until our fingers bled

and right around supper time

I'd run home in the night

just in time to get a whippin' from my Dad

oh way back when

he was 65 and I was 10

and I will never be as free again

oh way back when

the summer flew by quickly

and Josh and I spent out time

writing words to songs from memories of his past

he'd tell me bout the way it was

and I'd find the perfect rhyme

and I couldn't believe how we wrote our songs so fast

I never knew an old man

could be so full of life

the love we had was so hard to explain

and I remember how the tears fell when he spoke of his late wife

and I'd give him my 6-string to ease his pain

oh way back when

he was 65 and I was 10

and I will never be as free again

oh way back when

and then in late November

I knocked on his cabin dor

I knocked and knocked but Joshua never came

and I still remember

how he layed there on the floor

and I went home cryin' in the rain

oh way back when

he was 65 and I was 10

and I will never be as free again

oh way back when

oh way back when

oh way back when