Hello my Country
I once came to tell everyone your story
Your passion was my poetry
And your past my most potent glory
Your promise was my prayer
Your hypocrisy my nightmare
And your problems fill my present
Are we both going somewhere?

Step right up young lady
Your two hundred birthdays make you old if not senile
And we see the symptoms there in your rigor mortis smile
With your old folks eating dog food
And your children eating paint
While the pirates own the flag
And sell us sermons on restraint

And while blood's the only language that your deaf old ears can hear
And still you will not answer with that message coming clear
Does it mean there's no more ripples in your tired old glory stream
And the buzzards own the carcass of your dream?

B*U*Y Centennial
Sell 'em pre-canned laughter
America Perennial
Sing happy ever after

There's a Dance Band on the Titanic
Singing Nearer My God to Thee
And the iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Yes I read it in the New York Times
That was on the stands today
It said that dreams were out of fashion
We'll hear no more empty promises
There'll be no more wasted passions
To clutter up our play

It really was a good sign
The words went on to say
It shows that we are growing up
In oh so many healthy ways
And I told myself this is
Exactly where I'm at
But I don't much like thinking about that

Harry -- are you really so naive
You can honestly believe
That the country's getting better
When all you do is let her alone
Harry -- Can you really be surprised
When it's there before your eyes
When you hold the knife that carves her
You live the life that starves her to the bone

Good dreams don't come cheap
You've got to pay for them
If you just dream when you're asleep
There is no way for them
To come alive
To survive

It's not enough to listen -- it's not enough to see
When the hurricane is coming on it's not enough to flee
It's not enough to be in love -- we hide behind that word
It's not enough to be alive when your future's been deferred

What I've run through my body, what I've run through my mind
My breath's the only rhythm -- and the tempo is my time
My enemy is hopelessness -- my ally honest doubt
The answer is a question that I never will find out

Is music propaganda -- should I boogie, Rock and Roll
Or just an early warning system hitched up to my soul
Am I observer or participant or huckster of belief
Making too much of a life so mercifully brief?

So I stride down sunny streets and the band plays back my song
They're applauding at my shadow long after I am gone
Should I hold this wistful notion that the journey is worthwhile
Or tiptoe cross the chasm with a song and a smile

Well I got up this morning -- I don't need to know no more
It evaporated nightmares that had boiled the night before
With every new day's dawning my kid climbs in my bed
And tells the cynics of the board room your language is dead

And as I wander with my music through the jungles of despair
My kid will learn guitar and find his street corner somewhere
There he'll make the silence listen to the dream behind the voice
And show his minstrel Hamlet daddy that there only was one choice

Strum your guitar -- sing it kid
Just write about your feelings -- not the things you never did
Inexperience -- it once had cursed me
But your youth is no handicap -- it's what makes you thirsty, hey kid

Strum your guitar -- sing it kid
Just write about your feelings -- not the things you never did

Dance Band...

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