Steppenwolf - Slender Thread of Hope lyrics

Words and music by John Kay

You see that endless line? They're victims of our time

Who's only crime was to bank on their fathers dreams

To work hard all your life, to raise your family with your wife

And to survive all the heartaches and bad breaks fate may bring

But dreams are seldom real and an aching heart won't heal

Standing in a line for a meal at a strangers door

As night begins to fall, they lay down in the hall of the mission

Of the Salvation Army that is loosing the war

And they dream of home, where someone's waitin'

Waitin' by the phone at the end of their rope

But come early dawn as dreams are fading

They're hanging by a slender thread of hope

Now it's closing time again, she turns her collar to the wind

Goes running in the rain to a friend on the way back home

To hold the only joy the world did not destroy

A laughing little brown eyed boy she calls her own

Though he leads her by the hand and tries to be her little man

He's really still too young to understand her quiet fears

Oh bills weigh on her mind and she hates her daily grind

'Cause time for romance was impossible to find these last few years

Now they're goin' home, where no one's waiting

Weary to the bone, she tries to cope

Sitting there alone, while slowly fading

She rocks to sleep her slender thread of hope

The news comes on at ten, the public servant will explain

How pouring water on the drowning little man will solve the mess

To save our way of life and to help us all survive

Those with nothing will now have to stay alive on even less

And as he spoke these words of wisdom

Like a cruel joke beyond his scope

With just one stroke from his fountain pen

He cut the last and final thread of hope

© 1984 Rambunctious Music (ASCAP)