Ten Old Guys

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About this song

Advice to a college kid: find ten old guys and buy them a plate, or pay the stupid tax yourself. Fifties doo-wop from a man who got the same advice forty years ago and ignored it.

Lyrics

[Intro]
Ten old guys (ooh-wah), ten old guys (ooh-wah)

[Verse 1]
A hundred eighty men on the church lawn,
Fajitas on a paper plate,
A kid sat down beside me, twenty years old,
Engineering down at Texas State,
I said, "Son, I know you won't take my advice,
Nobody your age ever does,
I'm way too old to say anything important,
But if I were you, here's what I'd do, because..."

[Chorus]
Find ten old guys (ten old guys!)
And say, "I need a mentor" (ooh-wah-ooh),
You can learn from their mistakes for the price of a plate,
Or pay the stupid tax yourself (yourself),
Like I paid it (like he paid it),
Ten old guys.

[Verse 2]
Now wisdom comes from experience, son,
And experience comes from the lack,
Ask me how I know (ask him how he knows),
I've got the receipts in a shoebox in the back,
The fella next to me said, "I've got the flat tires to prove it,"
I lost a hundred grand on a thing or two,
I've paid a lot of stupid tax in my time,
And I'm trying to save a little for you.

[Chorus]
Find ten old guys (ten old guys!)
And say, "I need a mentor" (ooh-wah-ooh),
You can learn from their mistakes for the price of a plate,
Or pay the stupid tax yourself (yourself),
Like I paid it (like he paid it),
Ten old guys.

[Verse 3]
And avoid crazy (avoid crazy),
She'll be pretty and she'll be fun,
But if all your friends say she's not the one,
Listen (listen), just this once, son, listen,
The fella next to me could tell you all about it,
The good news is he didn't marry her,
Some fellas do (some fellas do).

[Bridge]
Across the table a father said,
"My boy's twenty-five, and he ignores me too,"
"Of course he does," I said, "and so did I,"
Forty years back, at a table like this one,
An old man told me every word of it,
And I nodded, and I smiled, and I ignored him,
And I paid, and I paid, and I paid.

[Final Chorus]
Now I'm one of the ten old guys (ten old guys!)
Got the gray hair and the plate (ooh-wah-ooh),
I told him every word that I was told,
And I know for a fact he'll ignore me (ignore me),
Like I did (like he did),
Ten old guys.

[Outro]
He wiped his hands and he looked at me,
And he said, "We'll see." (We'll see, we'll see)
Ten old guys (ooh-wah)...

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