Dreidel

Words & Music:

Don McLean

Someone offered to help me fix these lyrics. But, I listened to them again against the original album version (you know, the one with the bells & whistles & horns) and they match up with that one. Are there other lyric versions out there?

CHORUS:

I feel like a spinning top or a dreidel.

The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle; you just slow down.

'Round & 'round this world you go.

Spinning through the lives of the people you know; we all slow down.

A7 G E

How you gonna keep from turning from day to day?

A7 G B7

How you gonna keep from turning your life away?

C G C Am C G B7

No days you can borrow, no time you can buy, no trust in tomorrow, it's a lie.

REPEAT CHORUS:

BRIDGE 1: [half-time]

And I feel like I'm a-dippin' and a-divin'. My sky shoes are spiked with lead heels.

I'm lost in this star car I'm a-drivin'; but my air sole keeps pushing big wheels.

C Am C Bm

My world is a constant confusion, my mind is prepared to attack.

C D G D Am

My past, a persuasive illusion, I'm watching the future; it's black.

BRIDGE 2: [a tempo]

[n.c.] Am [2 chop chords] [n.c.]

What do you know? You know just what you perceive.

What can you show? Nothing of what you believe.

And as you grow; each thread of life that you leave

BRIDGE 3: [half-time, accelerando through the lines]

[n.c.] E A E7(no 3) A

Will spin around your deeds and dictate your needs.

As you sell your soul & you sow your seeds.

And you wound yourself & your loved one bleeds.

And your habits grow & your conscience feeds.

On all that you thought you could be,

E A E

I never thought this could happen to me...

CHORUS:

CODA:

I feel like a spinning top or a dreidel.

The spinning and don't stop when you leave the cradle; you just slow down.

You just slow down. You just... slow... down...