Keep On Smillin'

One of my favorite songs from the mid-1970's is Wet Willie's Keep on Smillin'. It was a pop radio hit during the summer of 1974, the year I turned 14 and right before I started high school. At the time, the lyrics were somehow recognizable and something I felt I could relate to even though I was really too young to understand completely. The song both melancholy and hopeful (just like me!). Over the intervening years, I've lived enough to have this particular portion of the song pop into my head from time to time:

You're just hangin out
in a local bar
And you're wonderin
who the hell you are
Are you a bum
or are you a star?

Keep on smilin through the rain
laughin at the pain
Rollin with the changes
til the sun comes out again

I'm not sure why those lyrics stuck but they did and have shown up in my mind as a comforting backstop when the occasion called for it. Anyway, listen to the whole thing here. And here's some film of them from way back in the day doing another song.

One weird note: As I was looking for the lyrics to paste in here (even thought I thought I knew them by heart), I noticed that some lyric sites have the lyrics as "Are you a farmer or are you a star". WTF? If those were the real lyrics I would have lost a lot of respect for the song.