I'M Just Johnnie

you know i keep the paper for some future rainy day 
i put it in a pile with all the other things i save 
bottle tops and broken watches, rubber bands and creamer cartons
all that i might need tomorrow  you never know and it gets hard

folding all the clothes, a growing pile upon the bed
t-shirts from my travels, egypt, montreal, berlin
turning up the radio, the bbc, the world's so close
my old car is dead you know, and all those papers block the door

i can't find it, paradise, is in the mind, i just know it is
but i've been searching, for a lifetime

i pick my way through everything to find the ringing phone 
pose a hundred questions hungry just to hear someone
another year tomorrow, no one here to send a card to 
books and bills and empty jars, a wave arising oh my god 

i can't find it, paradise, is in the mind, i just know it is
but i've been searching, for a lifetime

wasn't i alive among the pine trees and the wind
running through the country trying to fight it
almost out of time and i still don't know what it is
i don't have what i need to keep from dying

i can't find it, paradise, is in the mind, i just know it is
but i've been searching, for a lifetime 

you know i keep the paper for some future rainy day
i put it in a pile with all the other things i save
envelopes and advertisements, soup cans and folder files
i keep looking, I can't find it, paradise, or something like it