Lyrics of and My Thoughts on "All I Can Do Is Write About It"

(comments in italics)

Yet another wonderful Van Zant ballad, this song has a great environmental theme (without shoving it down your throat) and speaks of the beauty of the South.  I only know the acoustic version of this song, which opens with some easy guitar strums, then the first verse:

Well this life that I've led,
Has took me everywhere
There ain't no place I ain't never gone.
But it's kinda like the sayin',
That you heard so many times
Well there just ain't no place like home.

Did you ever see a she-gator protect her young
Or fish in a river swimmin' free?
Did you ever see the beauty of the hills of Carolina,
Or the sweetness of the grass in Tennessee?

Chorus:
And Lord I can't make any changes.
All I can do is write 'em in a song.
Yes, for I can see the concrete slowly creepin'
Lord take me and mine before that comes.

Do you like to see a mountain stream a-flowin'
Do you like to see a youngun with his dog?
Did you ever stop to think about well the air you're breathin'
Well you better listen to my song.

Chorus, then the most triumphant key change you've ever heard, from G to A, highlighted by great piano rolls, then it's back to G for the last verse:

I'm not tryin' to put down no big cities.
But the things they write about us are just a bore.
Well you can take a boy out of ol' Dixieland, Lord,
But you'll never take ole Dixie from a boy.

Chorus
I can see the concrete slowly creepin;
Lord take me and mine before that comes.