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It was the town that made America famous.
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The churches full and the kids all gone to hell.
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Six traffic lights and seven cops and all the streets kept clean.
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The supermarket and the drug store and the bars all doing well.
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They were the folks that made America famous.
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The local fire department stocked with shorthaired volunteers.
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And on Saturday night while America boozes
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The fire department showed dirty movies,
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The lawyer and the grocer seeing their dreams
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Come to life on the movie screens
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While the plumber hopes that he won't be seen
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As he tries to hide his fears and he wipes away his tears.
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But something's burning somewhere. Does anybody care?
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We were the kids that made America famous.
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The kind of kids that long since drove our parents to dispair.
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We were lazy long hairs dropping our, lost confused, and copping out.
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Convinced our futures were in doubt and trying not to care.
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We lived in the house that made America famous.
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It was a rundown slum, the shame of all the decent folks in town.
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We hippies and some welfare cases,
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Croweded families of coal black faces,
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Cramped inside some cracked old boards,
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The best that we all could afford
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But still to nice for the rich landlord
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To tear it down and we could hear the sound
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Of something burning somewhere. Is anybody there?
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We all lived the life that made America famous.
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Our cops would make a point to shadow us around our town.
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And we love children put a swastika on the bright red firehouse door.
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America, the beautiful, it makes a body proud.
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And then came the night that made America famous.
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Was it carelessness or someone's sick idea of a joke.
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In the tinder box trap that we hippies lived in someone struck a spark.
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At first I thought I was dreaming,
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Then I saw the first flames gleaming
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And heard the sound of children screaming
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Coming through the smoke. That's when the horror broke.
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Something's burning somewhere. Does anybody care?
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It was the fire that made America famous.
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The sirens wailed and the firemen stumbled sleepy from their homes.
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And the plumber yelled: "Come on let's go!"
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But they saw what was burning and said: "Take it slow,
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Let'em sweat a little, they'll never know
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And besides, we just cleaned the chrome." Said the plumber: "I'm going alone."
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He rolled on up in the fire truck
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And raised the ladder to the ledge
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Where me and my girl and a couple of kids
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Were clinging like bats to the edge.
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We staggered to salvation,
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Collapsed on the street.
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And I never thought that a fat man's face
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Would ever look so sweet.
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It was the scene that made America famous.
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If not the love that made America great.
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You see we spent the rest of that night in the home of a man I'd never known before.
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It's funny when you get that close it's kind of hard to hate.
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I went to sleep with the hope that made America famous.
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I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school.
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Of the America that made America famous...and
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Of the people who just might understand
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That how together yes we can
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Create a country better than
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The one we have made of this land,
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We have a choice to make each man
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who dares to dream, reaching out his hand
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A prophet or just a crazy God damn
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Dreamer of a fool - yes a crazy fool
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There's something burning somewhere.
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Does anybody care?
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Is anybody there?
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-----------------
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What Made America Famous
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| Harry Chapin |
