Had a good old girl back in ‘83
Boy she sure was good to me
She really let me be myself,
But I tried to keep her on a shelf
Wouldn’t let her do a thing, learned my lesson late that spring
The hard way
The hard way

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen
your silly face full of broken dreams
We all sure did come up and lean 
to the land of opportunity
Too bad we believed the things they were telling you and me
Had to learn it the hard way
The hard way

I never thought to see the light 
I’d have to roll through the darkness and lose my sight
I never thought that to give a lickin’ 
I’d have to hide my tail and turn up chicken
I never thought to dream that I’d live ten thousand days and see it the hard way
The hard way

Well sometimes I think that overnight 
Things go wrong, never work out right
I don’t know what’s right or wrong
So you sure won’t learn it in this song
The only way is to follow your heart
In this dog-eat-dog world I think that’s smart
But then who am I to say, I always learn things the hard way
The hard way