Ben King's Verse/Like the New Friends Best
Don't talk to me o' old time friends,
But jes give me the new.
The old friends may be good enough,
But somehow they won't do,
I don't care for their old time ways;
Their questions you'll allow
Are soulless as a parrot's gab:--
"Well, what you up to now?"
That's one thing I've agin 'em,
'Cause that with all the rest,
Like hintin' 'bout some old time debt;
I like my new friends best.
I meet an old friend in the street,
As oftentimes I do,
Mechanically he stops to shake
An' say: "Well, how are you?"
Then drawin' down his face, as if
His cheeks was filled with lead,
He says: "I spose you've heard the news?"
"No!" "Eli Stubbs is dead.
An' 'fore he died he ast for you--
Seemed sorry you was gone,
An' said 'at what he'd let you have
He hoped would help you on."
Now that's why I don't like 'em much,
You prob'bly might have guessed,
I aint got much agin' 'em, but
I like the new friends best.
Old friends are most too home-like now.
They know your age, and when
You got expelled from school, and lots
Of other things, an' then
They 'member when you shivereed
The town an' broke the lights
Out of the school 'nen run away
An' played "Hunt Cole" out nights.
They 'member when you played around
Your dear old mommy's knee;
It's them can tell the very date
That you got on a spree.
I don't like to forget 'em, yet
If put right to the test
Of hankerin' right now for 'em,
I like the new friends best.