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