I first learned about Theodore Roszak from listening to Margot Adler’s drive time radio show on BAI, Unstuck in Time. She talked about his book Where the Wasteland Ends, a book exploring the evolution of the counterculture, and I went out and bought it and soon thereafter wrote this song. If interested, you can read more about my history with Margot in the introduction to So Many Times Before, another one of my songs on this site also written for her. I particularly remember a phone call she received from a rather irate listener. Some of the older lefties that listened to the station often called to complain when the talk got too hippie-ish or New Age, and this guy was lecturing Margot that she had an obligation to instruct the younger generation. She took a beat and said: “I never really thought of this show that way. I just feel like I share what interests me and if a listener feels like he or she is “home” then the show is working.” That’s how I feel about all my writing and Margot gave me the context and the courage to believe that that was acceptable. I do miss her.
Lyrics
Where the Wasteland Ends
Years of fear, years of gloom
Too much searching, too much room
While my body was a tomb
For my soul
Self‑indulged, fat and smug
While the dust under my rug
Reinforced the walls I’d dug
Around my hole
But despite the ropes that bound me
And the way the past would hound me
Morning came that finally found me
In control
For I’ve just begun
To learn to touch the ground I walk upon
And to keep my eyes upon the sun
And to listen to the stars when day is done
It was senseless, quite unreal
It was thinking how to feel
It was being well concealed
In my mind
What you said was what I heard
Not the meaning, just the word
The profane and the absurd
Aged like wine
And I drank ’til I was sated
Never drunk just dissipated
Yet now I’m intoxicated
All the time
For I’ve just begun
To learn to touch the ground I walk upon
And to keep my eyes upon the sun
And to listen to the stars when day is done
Cost me dearly going my way
And I nearly lost control
But I’ve clearly made it to the highway
Going home, going home
I broke down and confessed
Gave up all that I possessed
For uncharted wilderness
Of sand and stone
From in here to out there
Oh, the wasteland is so bare
How could anybody dare
To cross alone
Yet I find day by day
At each stop along the way
There’s a friendly face to say
Hey, welcome home
For I’ve just begun
To learn to touch the ground I walk upon
And to keep my eyes upon the sun
And to listen to the stars when day is done.