Name: Grant John
Duration: P00H04M57S
Description: Grant John is a true story about a man who has been walking and living rough for 43 years. It was written by Roo Friend and performed by his band Stomperoo. The style is rock bluegrass.

Grant John

by Stomperoo

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about

Grant John is a true story about a man who has been walking and living rough for 43 years. It was written by Roo Friend and performed by his band Stomperoo. The style is rock bluegrass.

lyrics

Grant John (c) Roo Friend APRA 2020

Grant John is a highway man roaming this great big land, when he hits the road he doesn’t care if nobody understands
Left his job and family for a life out on the road, said “I’ll be back in 3 months” that was 43 years ago
Oh Grant John Oh Grant John, master of your space and time
Oh Grant John Oh Grant John Oh Grant John walking down the line

We’re all walking down the line in our special way, that light at the end of the tunnel gonna be ours some day
Fill your life with observation stop to smell the flowers, or fill it up with buying dreams by selling your working hours

GJ had a job in Melbourne working in a bank, one day he simply walked away, never looking bank
Fell in love with walking lost all track of time, drinking rain from puddles eating what he could find

Tried to tell his mother that he was still alive, finally after 19 years a letter did arrive
She’d been worried crazy, blamed herself of course, but it took another 6 long years before she heard any more

Allan Nixon met Grant John down Echuca way, his mother would be easy to find with a name like Cadoret
Sure enough he tracked her down and got Grant John to ring, and she rushed off to Shepparton, dropping everything

Finally when she saw Grant John she didn’t know what to say, was this the little boy she raised who up and ran away?
Took a lot of heartache to try to understand, that this was a different person, this was a self-made man

GJ said he was sorry but he did what he had to do, a strong urge still possesses him to live and to be true
True to the inner conviction that out here there is more, more to feel more to see more life to explore
I met GJ in a road side stop somewhere up Walcha way, he had the most relaxing smile I’d seen in many a day
He blended into the vegetation he was suddenly gone, and he was in the sun reading a book when I got up at dawn

Is GJ a spiritual man? That I do not know, but he is a walking man happy on his own
Following weather following food living off the land, a silent meditation a simple walking man

credits

released August 31, 2020
Guitar, banjo and voice: Roo Friend
bass: Larry Tailor
drums: Steve Gatt
electric guitar: James Hendriks

produced by Roo Friend
mixed and mastered at the Pocket Studio, Brisbane, 2020

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about

Stomperoo Brisbane, Australia

Stomperoo, sideman to the famous, playing guitar music crossing over on blues, jazz, folk and funk, re-defining and de- constructing everything from divorce, property settlement, gardening and crop rotation to junk food, obesity, infants, terrorism, sex and traffic, in the style of Mose Allison, Georgie Fame, Tom Waits, and Arlo Guthrie. ... more

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