1492
The American Dream
1620 / Reservations
1776
Auction Block
Gettysburg
Melting Pot
1869
Age Of Wonder
1920
1929
1945
Victory Parade
Could It Get Any Better?
Cold War Blues
1963
Kick Me Out Of The Country
The American Dream Part II
1996  Suite

We were playing in the surf by the Oceanside
When three ships appeared - I'd seen them in a dream
Taller than the trees, they seemed to brush the sky
They came in with the wind
Could someone tell me what it means?

The men they were so pale and the sounds they made
Was something that I heard once in a dream
So I ran back to the village
And gathered up the tribe
And told them just what I'd seen

Mama, I don't feel all right
I had this dream just the other night
Something bad is blowing in
And I'm afraid
Things will never be the same again

We finally bought a house
Got a mortgage from the bank
Making payments on a brand new car
Got the mileage of a tank
Got three little ones in school
Sporting braces on their teeth
Got a swimming pool, and a microwave
We've got more than enough to eat

Got a TV set in every room
That's hooked up to a dish
Can't wait 'til I retire
All I'm gonna do is hunt and fish
I started out with nothing more
Then my own two hands and feet
Now I've lived up to the American Dream
And I'm living on easy street
 

     Yeah, I'm living the American Dream
     Dreams come true, I've won the game
     They may not be my own rules
     But they suit me just the same
     Living the American Dream
     Everybody's got a dream

From every town in Europe
They left their kings and queens
And huddled together on the decks of ships
With their pockets full of dreams
From the jungles of Western Africa
Their stories were much the same
Except they never saw the daylight
And their dreams were bound in chains

     Living the American Dream
     Everybody's got a dream

From the steppes of Central Asia
To the kingdoms of the orient
From the paddies and swamps of the Southeast
They set out to see where they could get
And coming to the New World
They had no trouble getting in
But they never dreamt about the trouble that they'd have
With the color of their skin
 

     Living the American Dream
     Everybody's got a dream

It's been a long, long journey
We've come a long way across the ocean
No turning back now
It's over, we made it
And we're finally home

It's been a long, long journey
And now the New World is lying before us
This is our first taste of freedom
I like it
So let's go ashore

We claim this piece of land New Plymouth
A better place to live...where
You can worship how you want to
A perfect place to start a new
Society where everything is fair

It's been a long cold winter
So many friends no longer with us
I think this freedom is ok
But the price we've had to pay
Is really steep

If it wasn't for the Indians, helping like they did
We'd all be dead and buried
Yeah, they really saved our skins
If it wasn't for the Indians, we'd all be in the ground
Maybe we can help them,
Now they haven't got a clue
About God!

Well, this land was pretty big from coast to coast
But not big enough to leave alone our Indian hosts
So with one hand on the trigger and the other on a pen
We took away their real estate, then said
You're finally free to do just what you'd like
This stinking piece of desert should be all right
Unless we find out later that there's oil or gold
In which case you'll do just what you're told

Step right up to the roulette wheel, White Man, if you've got the nerve
See the pretty lights on the slot machine?
You'll get what you deserve

Well without any reservation
We put them on reservations
Now they're taking reservations
At the casino hotel...

Yankee Doodle came to town
Riding in a Chevy
He ran some British soldiers down
Said, "Ok boys we're ready"
Gonna start a nation here
Where everyone is equal
Sent King George a telegram
And signed it We The People

Yankee Doodle came to town
Riding in a Ford
He ran some British soldiers down
He could not be ignored
Gonna start a nation here
Where everyone is free
Sent King George a telegram
Said, "Keep your fucking tea!"

Yankee Doodle came to town
In a Cadillac
Ran some British soldiers down
He would not pay the tax
Gonna start a nation here
A new democracy
Sent King George a telegram
Said, "Stay across the sea"

Yankee Doodle came to town
Riding on a Harley
Ran some British soldiers down
Drunk on hops and barley
Gonna start a nation here
With liberty for all
Sent King George a telegram
Said "Don't expect a call!"

He watched his family split up on the auction block one day
Inspected, poked and prodded, one by one then dragged away
He hadn't even heard about the new United States
Which was celebrating freedom on that very auction day

He'd had a dream the night before where he was safe at home
Running through the forests where he'd grown up long ago
And in his dream he saw his people standing on the shore
Their faces now a memory of who he'd been before

     They tell us that all men are created equal
     Come on down, we've got a brand new stock!
     And personal freedom is a God given right
     Free to come and bid at the auction block

They finally brought him forth, and stood him on a stage
A hundred dollars later he was sold and led away
To a farm in Carolina, where they put him in the fields
And scarred him with a bullwhip once to show him what was real

     They tell us that all men are created equal...

When he was old he had a dream where he was safe at home
Running through the forests where he'd grown up long ago
And in his dream he saw his people standing on the shore
Their faces now a memory; a dream and nothing more

Thousands dead in the fields around Gettysburg
Blue and Grey stained with the color of blood
Should have called quits in the fields around Gettysburg
Two more years of fighting 'til they finally had enough

Brother killing brother in the fields around Gettysburg
Bayonet and rifle is the order of the day
Generals calling shots in the fields around Gettysburg
No one had the sense to simply walk away

     Take up a collection for a national cemetery
     Fifty thousand men, would donate all they had
     Fifty thousand crosses to keep alive their memory
     A monument to celebrate the troubles that we've had

Woke up from a dream in the fields around Gettysburg
All around me soldiers lay, and no one made a sound
Looking for redemption in the fields around Gettysburg
How could such a noble dream bring us to this town?

     Take up a collection for a national cemetery
     Fifty thousand men would donate all they had
     Fifty thousand crosses to keep alive their memory
     A monument to celebrate the nightmares that we've had

The Candidates came on TV and called each other names
A fight broke out between some fans at a baseball game
One man built a mansion, and another built a shack
A guardsman but a bullet in a collage student's back

     Oh Oh
     It's not a melting pot
     We're living in a pressure cooker
     Temperature is hot
     Everybody wants something the other person's got
     Oh Oh
     It's not a melting pot

The lines were drawn in politics, up there on the hill
Living just like royalty and guess who pays the bill
A crowd of angry demonstrators on the White House lawn
Everybody's different and we'll never get along

     Oh Ho, It's not a melting pot...

Protests over everything from fetuses to whales
Honest folks who like to toke are taken off to jails
Together we just bicker, but divided we would fall
A Nation under nothing, we're united not at all

     Oh Oh, it's not a melting pot...

Three thousand miles of east and west bound track
They met up in the middle with the oceans at their backs
Across the heartland, up the mountains, through the lonesome west
A single line from coast to coast; The nation at it's best
.
Our country got much smaller when they drove the last spike in
Offered us a way to go and visit all our kin
Safe and fast at last, they keep 'em running night and day
Gonna but a ticket, take me clear to Santa Fe

Three thousand miles of east and west bound track
They met up in the middle with the country at their backs
One man at the throttle and the other shovels coal
No we have a way to get to everywhere we go

     Every town that's on the line will prosper and grow
     All you need's a platform for a station
     Soon you have a hotel where the people come and go
     Just like any other destination

Comfort like you've never seen before in your whole life
Padded seats to satisfy your mother or your wife
Watch the nation roll by like you've never seen before
You won't want to leave us when we reach the other shore

     Every town that's on the line will prosper and grow
     Commerce springs up all around the station
     Right beside the hotel is a brand new shiny bank
     Just like any other destination

Three thousand miles of east and west bound track
Our country got much smaller on that day, no turning back!
Across the heartlands, up the mountains, through the lonesome west
A single line from coast to coast the nation at it's best
A single line from coast to coast the nation at it's best

Now they've got electric lights, they call them incandescent, got a vacuum
and a filament, it's something just invented; gonna change the way we live
forever, how 'bout that new telephone that let's you talk through wires
which they say will be in every home, along with a refrigerator keeping all
your food cold, like that new milk that's been pasteurized or even that new
Oleo, and have you seen linoleum - you put it on your kitchen floor, it's
 Guaranteed to last for at least twenty years or even more

Oh, we're living in an age of wonder

Gonna trade my horse in for an automobile powered by a gas combustion
engine doing twenty miles an hour on a brand new cement roadway that
they've lined with those new phone-poles, I'll be home in twenty minutes, just in time to use the radio that some fellow just invented to be used with that new microphone, so someone singing in New York is carried right into my home, unless I want to wait 'til later, after I've enjoyed a bath; in which case I will hear them on a brand new wind up phonograph

Oh, we're living in an age of wonder
Change is coming fast
Nothing ever lasts
Breaking with the past
There's no turning back
To the way your parents lived before they had all these inventions, making
life so easy, who could miss the way it was before

Into the new age
Turning of the page
Not a passing phase
Technology will save us
From the problems that we've had before like hunger and disease and war,
can't you see the answer lies before us like an open door

Now they've got some weapons that they put in orbit up above, a laser
beam or something that can kill you while you're making love, or watch and
listen while you're sitting at you kitchen table drinking, so be careful what
 you say because they know just what you're thinking; every time you watch
 TV, they watch you watching what you see and store it in a big computer,
data that they can retrieve to use against you later if they think your
 thinking has gone wrong; technology was once your friend but now you see
your freedom's gone

Oh, we're living in an age of wonder

We came back from the Great War
When freedom balanced on the brink
The celebration's over now
We've had enough to drink

They say it's for our own good
It's written there in ink
It's even in the Bible
We've had enough to drink

So welcome to the prohibition
Break those bottles
Smash those kegs
Don't want to get caught drink, no no
Don't want to tangle with the Feds

In soda bottles
And canning jars
They peddled moonshine
In backroom bars
And a new type of businessman
came to be known
New folk heroes...
Men like Al Capone

The market took a dive today
You woke up from a dream
To see the brokers sailing past
Your window with pathetic screams
And now you're money isn't worth
The paper that it's printed on
Prosperity was only an illusion
But now it's gone

     You'll have to lay the chauffeur off
     Have to let the servants go
     You'll have to sell the summerhouse
     You'll have to let the family know
     That things will never be the same
     The way they were before
     They'll have to make their own beds now
     And learn to sweep the floor

The market took a dive today
You woke up to a nightmare
The sheriff standing at your door
His face a mask of true despair
He's sorry, but he has to serve
The papers in his hand
Another farm foreclosed upon
Another family driven from their land

     You look around the house you built
     The seeds that you have sown
     Then pull the truck up to the front door
     A stack up all that you own
     Your little was too young
     To grasp what horrors lie ahead
     As you head out on the dusty road
     Another American dream lying dead

They started it in Forty-one, when unprovoked
They came in off the water on a Sunday morning
Caught the fleet asleep at dockside
Sent so many to the bottom; Battleships and Cruisers twisted
F.D.R. came on the air, with war declared and all our boys enlisted

We fought the Germans and the Japs
In jungles and in deserts, over cities, under water
And we left a trail of crosses in these places that we'd never heard before
Like Midway Island, Tobruk, Tarawa
El Alemain and Normandy, The Ardennes, Okinawa

Oh, we were fighting the good war
For once it was clear what was wrong and right
Gonna save the world from all this evil
If you want to keep your freedom, you'll have to join the fight
For once we were truly united
Our differences gone when push came to shove
Four more years of sacrifice
Everybody working to preserve this land we love

We kept the home fires burning bright
Collected tin, grew victory gardens
Women drafted to the line of industry worked day and night
While Gold Star Mothers lit their candles
Heads held high, their grief shared by so many others
Every loss a source of both our agony and pride

It ended late in forty-five, after we twice split the atom
Victory through perseverance - we swore we'd get the job done
And with so much of the world in ruins
Our boys came home to those they'd left
A chance to get back to their lives
A chance to taste the freedom that they'd won

Our fathers fought in the big war
Came home as heroes after they'd won
Defenders of our liberty
Equality for everyone
So where were all the colored folks?
I didn't see them marching in the victory parade
'Cause even though they'd helped us win the war
They'd all been warned to keep away

We were feeling invincible
Secure in the principles
Of the American Way

Our flag was unfurled
And we expected all the world
To embrace the American Way

We ventured on the highways
We moved into the suburbs
Had everything we needed
We were in the land of plenty
With industry expanding
And supermarkets bulging
We were finally living up to
Our wildest dreams

Mom baked her apple pies
While dad got his promotions
And Junior got a base hit
Playing Little League on Saturday
They took him out for ice cream
To one of those new drive-ins
They were basking in the glory
Of the American Dream

And as a nation
We had never been so strong
Thanks in part to the knowledge
That no one else had built the atom bomb

Well they say the missiles are coming
That it's only a matter of time
And there's nothing I can do
I got the Cold War Blues

They teach the kids to duck and cover
But I know that they're wasting their time
And there's nothing I can do
I got the cold war blues

Don't really care who’s fault it is
The Kremlin or the White House
The Generals or the businessmen
The Common Man who went along
'Cause once they push the button
There'll be no turning back now
With everybody vaporized
There'll be no right or wrong

So I'm just waiting to hear the sirens
That wake me up in the middle of the nigh
I might pick up my guitar
And sing these Cold War Blues
And when it comes...if I’ve been dreaming
Would I wake up to that first flash of light?
There'd be nothing I could do
And that's my Cold War Blues

Poor John F. Kennedy
They Shot him in the head
He never got to see his vision through
When he was the president
Her cam on and he said
We're gonna put a man up on the moon

Blind obedience
Going to get you into trouble
Vietnam's calling
Don't you want to check it out?
Uncle Sam
Wants to ship you off on the double
Lock 'n Load you maggot
This is what your freedom is about

     This time it's gonna be different
     It's not my war and I'm not gonna fight
     This time it's gonna be different
     It's not my war and I'm not gonna fight

You can kick me out of the country
You can take away my citizenship
But you can't convince me wrong is right
No, you can't make me go and fight your fight
You can take away my passport
You can confiscate my house
But you can't convince me wrong is right
No, you can't make me go and...
Fight...your...fight

I finally found a place to live
In an alley behind the Bank
Got a big 'ole cardboard box
It ain't too warm, but it ain't too dank
Got a pair of shoes that I found downtown
Can't say that they really fit
But I stuff 'em all up full of paper
If I got to go and take a trip
I've got a friend I used to talk to
But he died when we had the last storm
I don't know where they took his body
But I hope they took him somewhere warm
There's things I can remember about my life a long time ago
Seems I used to have a family
But where that was I just don't know

Yeah I'm living the American Dream
On my own and fancy free
If I wait 'til after midnight
I can find something to eat
Living the American Dream
Everybody's got a dream

I went to Vietnam once
When my government asked me to
Somehow I got fucked up
Couldn't do what they wanted me to do
Well they locked me up and they kept me doped
Until the doctors all finally agreed
That I wouldn't pose a menace
And so they dumped me out on the street

Living the American Dream
Everybody's got a dream

My dreams are full of spiders
My dreams are full of snakes
Sometimes I dream I'm back there again
Dreaming 'bout all my mistakes
They say that your dreams can't hurt you
They say that your dreams aren't real
They say that your dreams are nothing more
Than a reflection of how you feel

Living the American Dream
Everybody's got a dream

PART ONE - 220 YEARS

We started with a dream
And we watched our country grow
Etched out from the wilderness
So many years ago
With a brand new manifesto
And a pocket full of throwing stones
We sliced it into parcels and built our little homes

Maybe it was ruthless
Where we built our towns and farms
But we believed that God was on our side
And backed it up with firearms
Then standing on the western shore
We smiled and took stock
We were arrogant beyond belief
And unmoving as a rock

Two hundred and twenty years
Have we lived up to our dreams?
Do you have a place to live?
Do you have all that you need?
Two hundred and twenty years
Are we where we want to be?
Are you living out your dreams?
Do you think you're really free?

PART TWO - THE RICH GET RICHER

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer
One pulls the strings and the rest follow orders
The middle class dying, the nation gets sicker
While hour by hour the rich get still richer

     They lock up their wealth in mansions and banks
     They ride 'round in Limos, they eat off gold plates
     They don't give a damn 'bout us regular slobs
     Their hands don't get dirty, they don't have real jobs

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer
The dream that we once had is now out of order
The poor man's disease as the nation gets sicker
While minute by minute, the rich get still richer

     They eat 'til they're bloated, then throw us a bone
     They rewrite the laws to keep what they own
     They live off our labor; they walk on our backs
     They live just like kings while we pay the tax

PART THREE - URBAN NIGHTMARE

No one dreaming in the city tonight
You've got to stay awake if you're going to survive
Welcome to America
You're living in the urban nightmare
Got to keep your wits, don't be getting too alarmed
It's like walking through the jungle where the animals are armed
Welcome to America
You're living in the urban nightmare

PART FOUR - 1996

All of our best expectations
All of our wildest dreams
They all came together in ninety-six
The year of the American Dream
The year of the American Dream