Paper boy trudging down a dark icy road Near the end of his journey, the last of his load The winter wind cuts him as he turns towards home Half a mile away's the sound of thunder and foam The big lake, it's said, never gives up her dead The gales of November singin' in his head There's a wind and a wildness that he hears every day It's always around him, but always at bay It's friendly and cool in the summertime sun But it's icy and cold when the white winter comes He leaves it waiting outside goes in through the door The sound of the big lake, the Background Roar It's always around you, the Background Roar Within you, without you, it's in every pore You take it for granted, sometimes you dive in But it never leaves you, it never gives in Twenty years later, he's up on the stage Rockin' and rollin' for minimum wage It's hours of singing in a dark smoky bar The thunder of the drums and electric guitar It leaves his ears ringing with a dull aching sound Muffled and dirty, like he lives underground His manager tells him that he's gettin' too old At 33 he's only chasing fool's gold But he's fighting for an audience, the clamor and cheer Another kind of roar is seducing him here But then the band breaks up, another dream dies And at the end of the day, he's all outta tries It's always around you, the Background Roar But sometimes you wonder what it's there for Thundering silently up in your head A road from your hometown, your narrative thread There's rocks on the island, dark black and gray A billion years old, geologists say Worn down and weathered by glaciers and time There's a cove by the lake shore, easy to climb Up on the edge, survey the bottle green deep Gathering courage for that 20 foot leap He stood there as a young man, dove into it then And when he is old, by God he'll do it again Retired now, he still lives in LA Half a million cars on the freeway all day After forty years of nine-to-five not much left to do Soon his California days are gonna be through Sick and tired of every ozone day Longing for the lake effect to sweep him away Every day there's less and less keeping him here It's time to go back, time to disappear He's longing for water that's clean and cold To wash away the tired of a man grown old Goin' down to the waterline, down to the shore Gonna have a conversation with the Background Roar It's always around you, the Background Roar A voice from your past that you cannot ignore You may be lonely, but never alone The Background Roar is always calling you home