Last night I stayed the night in a faceless neon town
I woke up in a rented room and went out and looked around
And the morning sun on supermarkets, malls and fast-food chains
Told me this was Anytown U.S.A.

Now once upon a time the cities didn't look the same
And every sign on Main Street spelled out a local name
But now no matter where you go you see the same display
And each town looks like Anytown U.S.A.

 In these happy times we live in of fast prosperity
 The big fish eat the little fish till they're all the same to see
 And every week the hometown news says another family store has died
 And soon there's no town left with any living pride

The comfort is seductive, knowing just how it will be
Driving into any town from sea to shining sea
But the silent secret backroads I once loved to walk along
Are places golden arches don't belong

 Now there's churches in the shopping malls to save the shoppers' souls
 And video stores put the movies under your remote control
 And A & P save you so much, Ma and Pa just can't compete
 So they close up one more little piece of the dying American street

Last night I walked the streets of another nameless town
The feeling came over me I was on familiar ground
Yes I do believe I grew up here, but now it's all the same
Welcome to Anytown, U.S.A.

U.S.A.
Where's America today?

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That Was The Week

There was a famine that happened somewhere
One million people without a prayer
But it never made the TV news
Cause that was the week Mike Jackson got sued
 And two lands agreed to lay down their guns
And end a war that could never be won
But nobody gave it one minute of thought
Cause that was the week Pee Wee got caught

 That was the week, that was the day
 That was the morning we lost our way
 That was the week we could have been saved
 But there wasn't room for it on the front page

Somewhere a people are going extinct
Salvation plans drowned in red ink
But that was the week the games were starting
That was the week of Tonya Harding

 We couldn't care, cause we didn't know
 We only saw what they cared to show
 But we got our fix, we're not complaining
 It's only news if it's entertaining

And then there appeared in someone's eyes
The answers to all of our wherefores and whys
But the spark was extinguished before it could flame
Cause that was the week, again and again

 That was the week, the crossroads in time
 That was the last hope for humankind
 But we put it off with the turn of a dial
 Cause that was the year of the O.J. trial

 That was the moment we waited for
 That was the week we could have done more
 A nation is born, a way of life dies
 Buried among innuendo and lies

 A man on a cross tried to save us again
 But we never saw it on CNN
 That was the week of greatness and glory
 You might have missed that page fifteen story

 That was the week, that was the year
 Those were the stories that you didn't hear
 That was the week
 That was the week

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Five Senses

(capo 3rd fret for original key of Eb)

C            F
Helen heals with her mind
C                G
Arthur asks me "What's your sign?"
Am            F
Laura has had tea with God
    C                G
And so has my friend Todd
C                    F
Bob reads minds just like the paper
C              G
Inhaling that cosmic vapor
Am        F
Julie has telekinesis
    C      G       C
or one of those diseases
     C              E7
 And here I am with just five senses
  F                 D7
 Can't even find my contact lenses
 C              A7
 Everyone's got ESP
D7    G       C
 Everyone but me
    C            F
My therapist is telepathic
    C              G
Whenever she gets caught in traffic
Am                  F
She just thinks of peaceful scenes
    C                    G
And all the lights turn green
    C                   F
My friends say I could have their joy and
C                 G
health if I were just clairvoyant
Am               F
They tell me to just breathe deep
      C       G      C
But I always fall asleep

      C              E7
 And here I am with just five senses
 F                          D7
 Can't see through walls or picket fences
 C                  A7
 Everybody else can fly
 D7     G        C
 I just want to die
(instrumental verse with ad-libbed New Age nonsense)
     Am                E
  Oh when they handed out these powers
  Am               E
  I must have been in the shower
   F               C
  Now I stand in shame
            D7            G
  Without a mantra to my name

      C                  F
I've tried and tried but it's no use
    C                   G
My train of thought is just a caboose
Am                 F
Five trips to the health food store, I
C                    G
still can't seem to read your aura
C            F
I can't even get a date
C                  G
Just cause I don't meditate
    Am                F
My girlfriend said I was too common
     C       G     C
And left me for a shaman

    C               E7
 So here I am with just five senses
  F                  D7
 Guess I'll have to take my chances
  C               A7
 Being completely unaware
    D7                 G
 Of all the stuff out there
     C               E7
  Yes I ain't had no visitations
       F                   D7
  From angels, gods or hallucinations
   C               A7
  Tell me where to go
         D7      G        C    (C7 second time)
  To get tickets for that show (repeat last two lines)

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Summer of Love

You ask me how it was back then
I only know from the songs
On the AM radio dial
They made it sound so free and wild
But a child could not be a flower child
And when the Beatles came upon the scene
I was not half of seventeen
So we went as them on Halloween

 We were off at summer camp in that Summer of Love
 No boomer or Generation X
 Or MTV or Peter Max
 Shined down to light the way to who we were

And did I fight against the war,
Oh, did I take a stand?
Though I saw the protests on the news
I did not have a point of view
For I was much too young and scared to choose
And as the other campers laughed and teased
A 10-year-old tried to water ski
And Sergeant Pepper echoed through the trees

And when I finally came of age
History had turned the page
The moon was ours, the war was done
There was nothing left us to be won
And you cannot march to the sound of a silent drum
And they had some of our heroes shot
And the rest had had their visions bought
So we got Watergate not Camelot
As our graduation theme

 We were off at summer camp in that Summer of Love
 No Boomer or Generation X
 or MTV or Peter Max
 or Desert Storm or Vietnam
 or Microbus or Minivan
 Purple Haze or Purple Rain
 or Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain
 Shined down to light the way to who we were.

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Thanks Uncle Sam

A ten-minute smoke isn't much time
to consider the nature of truth
For an 18-year-old who's just been told
that he's signed away most of his youth
Cause there's marching and PT and queues for the phone
Just to make sure that home is still there
He'll learn to salute and spit-shine his boots
And the cut that's allowed for his hair

 And it's left, right, turn out the light
 And don't let them hear your tears in the night
 And it's wham, bam, thanks Uncle Sam
 It six weeks they'll make you a man

When you got no future, you want to believe
In a phrase like "Be all you can be"
It's the best inspiration money can buy
From a New York ad agency
But as he looks around for those confident soldiers
All eager to start their careers
All he can see are kids just like him
Wishing like hell they weren't here

 And it's left, right, turn out the light
 And try to believe them with all your might
 And it's wham, bam, thanks Uncle Sam
 It six weeks they made you a man

  At the end there's a drill and a formal parade
  To glorify Nation and God
  And he thinks that he's made it cause they tell him he's good
  After six weeks of screaming he's not

As he boards the bus to his permanent station
He doesn't know how much he's changed
With a cynical eye from that first big lie
He's already learning the game
But do you miss the boy who entered those gates
Innocent shine in his eyes?
He's learned who's in charge, and it sure isn't him
He will carry that load till he dies
  And it's left, right, it's no good to fight
 The ones in control are the ones who are right
 And it's wham, bam, thanks Uncle Sam
 So this is being a man
 So this is being a man.

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Four Times Forty

Same songs, different night
Same stage, smoky light
Same hope, always there
Someone will listen, someone will care
And it's four times forty and you've done your bit
Four times forty and it's time to quit
Four times forty doesn't seem so long
For the ones who are drinking, not singing songs

 And you sing
 This is the altar and I am the lamb
 I'm your sacrificial one-man band
 You just drop in a coin and I'm at your command
 Four times forty man

And it's three times forty that you've done this one
That you've dwelled in this house of the rising sun
And the bar man smiles though he's heard it too
But you still make it sound brand new
But there's two times forty in your repertoire
Two times forty you don't sing in bars
They're not top forty, they're not on the charts
They come from that place in your poet's heart

But one time in forty someone gets it right
And asks for the song that will save your night
And they hear the release like a bursting dam