Oh, I can still remember when I bought my first guitar
Remember walking from the shop to put it proudly in my car
And my family listened fifty times to my two song repertoire
I told my mom her only son was gonna be a star.

Well I bought all the Beatles records, sounded just like Paul
I bought all the old Chuck Berry's seventy-eights and all
And I sat by my record player playing every note they played
I watched them all on TV, copied every move they made.

Oh, Rock'n'Roll I gave you all the best years of my life
All the teeny sunny Sundays, all the moonless summer nights
I was so busy in the bed room, writing love songs to you
But you were changing your direction and I never even knew
That I was always just one step behind you.

Well, sixty-six seemed like the year I was really goin' somewhere
I was living in San Francisco wearing flowers in my hair
Singing songs of kindness so the world would understand
The guys and me thought we were more than just another band.

And then sixty-nine in L.A. came around so soon,
We were really making headway and writing lots of tunes,
And we must have played the wildest stuff that we had ever played,
And the way the crowds cried out for us, we thought we had it made.

Oh, Rock'n'Roll I gave you all the best years of my life
All the crazy, lazy young days, all the magic moony nights
I was so busy on the road, singing love songs to you
But you were changing your direction and you never even knew
That I was always just one step behind you.

Seventy-one I was all alone when I met Susanne
I was trying to go it solo with someone else's band
When she came up to me later and I took her by the hand
I told her all my troubles and she seemed to understand.

And she followed me to London to a hundred hotel rooms
To a hundred record companies who didn't like my tunes
*And she followed me back to Tennessee where she findly made me see
*I'm just a plain old country boy and that's all I'll ever be.
(*Alternate:
She followed me when finally I sold my old guitar,
She tried to help me understand I'd never be a star.)

Oh, Rock'n'Roll I gave you all the best years of my life
All the teeny sunny Sundays, all the moonless summer nights
*Oh, I never knew the magic I'm making it with you
*I'm getting along with a country song doing what I wanna do
*When I was always just one step behind you.
(*Alternate:
And though I never knew the magic of making it with you,
That I thank the Lord for giving me the little bit I knew
And I was always just one step behind you.)