How Have You Been lyrics How have you been, my darling children
While I have been away in the west
Though you are strangers I feel like I know you
By the way that you treat me and offer to feed me
And eagerly ask if I´ll stay for a rest
Now sit yourself down in a pile here before me
I wish I had presents for each of your smiles
But I have been travelling without much to carry
Just a broken guitar case with tape on the side
A bag and a few signs to help me get rides
But here are some beads from the throat of a princess
Who reigned in the years round two hundred B.C.
Divide them and wear them and make sure to share them
Cause I want you to have them in hopes that you´ll be
As lovely as the lady who gave them to me
And here is a strange European guitar string
I found on the floor of a club in Marseilles
It´s fat for the third string and skinny for the fourth string
But I kept it in hopes that I´d use it some day
It´s funny how people just do things that way
And here is a turtle from the Long Island Expressway
He says that his home has been covered with tar
So I gave him a ride on the back of my suitcase
And he says that he´d like to stay here in your yard
At long last his life won´t be quite so hard
How have you been, my darling children
While I have been away in the west
Though you are strangers I feel like I know you
By the way that you treat me and offer to feed me
And eagerly ask if I´ll stay for a rest