Back in the autumn of 1979, I remember the days growing shorter and the mornings on the Peelland fields turning crisp. That was the year the leaves seemed to hang on just a touch longer, as if reluctant to surrender to December winds. I’d press the play button on my battered Philips cassette deck and, sometimes, instead of the big names and rolling hits, I’d find myself drifting into quieter territory—a song from an altogether different corner of Nashville, worn into the groove by time and gentle hands. That’s when I first heard “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” by Billy Joe Shaver.
At that moment in my life, I wasn’t yet Kroes den Bock, country singer, but rather a homespun Dutch lad with a heart muddied by self-doubt and a longing to belong somewhere, somehow. If you’d seen me then—dusty boots, half-grown mustache, guitar case patched with old post stamps—you’d know this song was waiting for me. You can tell a lot about a man by what he chooses to listen to on his loneliest drives.
Billy Joe Shaver wrote “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” and released it quietly in 1973. It never reached radio glory like Dolly or Merle or John Denver. It sort of rambled into the world with a shrug and a sigh, like all of Shaver’s best songs. It’s not flashy. It’s not hopeful. It doesn’t try to cheer you up. And that’s why, to me, it’s a masterpiece.
There’s a line in that song I used to sing under my breath, shoulders hunched over the handlebars of a rusty Gazelle:
*“An old five and dimer’s my life’s been, my world’s been…”*
And then, a little further along, the line that hit hardest—especially at night, when the streets were empty, loneliness echoing off wet bricks:
*“I’ve spent my time just making rhymes of yesterday”*
It’s a song about living on the margins, about being one of life’s “five and dimers”—the folks who never quite manage success, whose dreams lie in second-hand stores and half-empty cafés. These days, when people come up to me after a gig and tell me how lucky I am, or ask what it’s like to be on stage, I always think back to the days when I didn’t know if I’d ever play for anyone at all.
The thing is, when I was younger, I thought being on the outskirts of things was punishment. I thought if you weren’t the star, you were failing. My father, a man who saw the world mostly through the bottom of a coffee cup, used to tell me, “Kroes, if you want anything you’d better stand in the middle of things. Otherwise the world’ll walk right by.” Yet I always found myself in the corners—writing songs alone, drifting down quiet Helmond lanes after midnight, my heart full of regret.
That’s what Billy Joe understood, I think. He wasn’t ashamed of his smallness, of his obscurity, his “five and dimer” status. He wasn’t shouting for someone to notice him. He was noticing himself. He was making poetry out of rejection, turning loss into something you could hum along to.
The older I get, the more I see my secrets laid bare in that song. There are days when applause feels like a warm room on a winter night—and yet, there are also evenings when I pack up my guitar, walk quietly to the car, and let the silence in the dashboard mirror settle around me like old familiar dust. In those moments, I am Billy Joe’s shadow: one more “five and dimer,” burning the candle at both ends for a few honest words, a little understanding in a world that moves ever faster.
I’ve spent too many years thinking I had to outgrow my brokenness, my insecurity, my questions. I tried to become the person my mother dreamed of, the friend people could count on, the musician who played only the right notes. But “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” taught me another lesson: you don’t have to win to be worthwhile. You don’t have to shine on every marquee. Sometimes the stories we tuck away in the glovebox, or hum as we wash the dinner plates, are worth just as much as the ones that fill stadiums.
There were times I’d stand by the Zuid-Willemsvaart, watching the lights floating on the canal, and the line would come back to me:
*“And old five and dimers like me are a dying breed”*
I felt that so sharply—I was scared of fading out, of becoming small and unremarkable. But then, as I grew older, I learned to see the beauty in the ordinary. I could be a five and dimer and still be enough. The song has that rare, lean kind of poetry—a resignation that’s not defeatism, but faithful acceptance of what is. It is a hymn for the overlooked.
So, if you ever find yourself drifting through the world unnoticed, if your dreams seem threadbare or your luck has run out—put on “Old Five and Dimers Like Me.” Listen quietly. Let those words roll over your heart like gentle rain. It’s a song for the back row, for the last train home, for the lost and for the almost-found.
I am still that boy sometimes—still trying to make rhymes out of yesterday. But I have learned that there is a kind of grace in that. Not everyone is meant for spotlights. Some of us grow best in the shade, where humility ripens into art, and a quiet song becomes a lifeline for someone, somewhere, who needs it desperately.
May you find your own music in the margins, where the world keeps its best secrets.
–Kroes den Bock