Aren't we all?

When I was an early teenager with the reputation of being the only dependable babysitter in my building, one of my favourite clients had a fabulous record collection that I could explore once my young charges were in bed.

It was rather hippy-dippy - very folksy with dashes of "prog-rock" and light jazz.  Among the discs were several Harry Chapin collections.

I haven't thought of Harry Chapin in years.  He was famous for his epic song-stories:  the tale of the wistful baritone Mr Tanner, sorting through the clothes in his dry-cleaning shop; a disc-jockey at WOLD, begging his wife to take him back; a rough-but-kindly frontier farmer meeting his mail-order bride at the train station. He's probably best known for "Cat's in the Cradle", a song about being too busy for a young son.  He was pretty young himself when he died in a car accident at age 38.

It seems to be Seventies Week at the coffee shops I've been visiting, a reminder of the rather odd songs that became hits in that decade.

As I worked, I realized "Taxi" was playing. As I half-listened, the middle section came on, which is in two dreamy sections - the inner monologues of the taxi driver and his passenger.  For the first time in years, I heard this familiar lyric:

I've got something inside me, not what my life's about
'Cause I've been letting my outside tide me over 'til the time runs out

And I stopped working for a moment.  I guess it takes a bit of living to understand that lyric.

You certainly don't get it when you're thirteen.