He went to Paris lookin' for answers To questions that bothered him so He was impressive, young and aggressive Savin' the world on his own But the warm summer breezes The French wines and cheeses Put his ambition at bay The summers and winters Scattered like splinters And four or five years slipped away Then he went to England, played the piano And married an actress named Kim They had a fine life, she was a good wife And bore him a young son named Jim And all of the answers and all of the questions Locked in his attic one day 'Cause he liked the quiet clean country livin' And twenty more years slipped away Well the war took his baby, the bombs killed his lady And left him with only one eye His body was battered, his whole world was shattered And all he could do was just cry While the tears were a-fallin' he was recallin' Answers he never found So he hopped on a freighter, skidded the ocean And left England without a sound Now he lives in the islands, fishes the pilin's And drinks his Green Label each day Writing his memoirs, losin' his hearin' But he don't care what most people say Through eighty-six years of perpetual motion If he likes you he'll smile and he'll say 'Jimmy, some of it's magic, some of it's tragic But I had a good life all the way' And he went to Paris lookin' for answers To questions that bothered him so