I used to think I was independent because I got up and left for the South That's where the grind caught up with me again I found the town all right, got seasonal work then settled for a year and achieved (?) first of all with a boyfriend But he wasn't the one And seasons change the same wherever you are So you're rumbling alone not unhappily in your routine when he appears And suddenly you're wretched, you've let yourself down and there's only one way out of this And the car door is wide open You open your eyes, and you're on passenger seats The too familiar town to see in the rearview And all you got is your work close and a big grin You've left everything behind again but you've left him plenty to remember you by Then you're both doing pick-up work, keeping one step ahead of the grind that spreads like an invading army through everyone's minds And keeps them ticking over in the engine of the blind Until one day you're looking at each other and you can both see the symptoms of a disease in your routine affections, in your private language, in your new friends' assumptions And you wake up one morning, and you roll to the middle of the bed, and you're fever cold, and there's no note The inevitable slaps your face but you don't know if it's saying "I told you so" or if it's saying that you're a fool to expect anything different Now you're stranded in a foreign country with no money and a few fair-weathered friends and they're telling you that constant drifting isn't means to a (?) end I know I'm gonna jam And it's not gonna be much fun, I'm settling like dust My daydreams packed in pacing rhyme (??) But I don't have any regrets for all the people left behind Because their disapproving faces show the grey cancer of the grind