Old Doc Brown

(album: Ride This Train - 1960)

He was just an old country doctor in a little country town
Fame and fortune had passed him by though we never saw him frown
As day by day in his kindly way he'd serve us one and all
Many a patient forgot to pay although Doc's fees were small

Though he needed his dimes and there were times that he'd receive a fee
He'd pass it onto some poor soul that needed it worse than he
He had to sell his furniture couldn't pay his office rent
So to a dusty room over a livery stable Doc Brown and his satchel went

And on the hitching post at the kerb below to advertise his wares
He nailed a little sign that read Doc Brown has moved upstairs
There he kept on helping folks get well,for his heart was jus'pure gold,
But anyone with eyes could see that Doc was getting old.

Then one day he didn't answer when they knocked upon his door
Old Doc Brown was laying down but his soul was no more
They found him there in that old black suit on his face was a smile of content
But all the money they could find on him was a quarter and a copper cent

So they opened up his ledger and what they saw gave their hearts a pull
Beside each debtor's name old Doc had write these words Paid In Full
Old Doc should had a funeral fine enough for a king
It's a ghastly joke our town was broke and no one could give a thing

'Cept Jones an undertaker he did mighty well
Donating an old iron casket he had never been able to sell
And the funeral procession it wasn't much for grace and pomp and the style
But those wagon loads of mourners they stretched out for more than a mile

We wanted to give him a monument we kinda figured we owed him one
Cause he made our town a better place for all the good he'd done
We pulled up that old hitching post where Doc had nailed a sign
We'd painted it white and to all of us it certainly did look fine

Now the rains and the snows have washed away our white trimmin's of paint
There ain't nothing left but Doc's own sign and that's getting pretty faint
But you can still see that old hitching post as if in answer to our prayers
Mutely telling the whole wide world Doc Brown has moved upstairs