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SEARCHING FOR AMERICA
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(Janis Ian)
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Where have you been that made you weep
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And left these stains upon your cheek
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What did you see while you were gone
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That haunts your eyes this sunny dawn
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They herded us like so much meat
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Up from the sewers to the street
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Where concrete canyons stretched their walls
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So high it made us want to crawl
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Past proverbs writ on subway cars
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And in-between the window bars
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We walked until the pavement bled
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And not a curse was left unsaid
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Into a place that knows no spring
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Where only steel and silver sing
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They made us dance until we dropped
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And the music of the jackhammers stopped
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I caught a cinder in my eye
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Searching for a patch of sky
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But the shadows drizzled down like in Pompeii
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That's how I spent my yesterday
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Searching for America
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In the rivets and the rust
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Searching for America
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Finding only dust
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What did you see that made you cry
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And left these trackmarks on your eye
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What did you find while you were there
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That sucks the light out of the morning air
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The gave us each a cropper's shack
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And land so hard it broke our back
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Then fed us 'til our bellies burst
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On promises that died at birth
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So I lay the baby out each dawn
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In-between the tender corn
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With sunrise for her bonnet
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And flies her only blanket
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We harvested until we bled
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'Til every single root ran red
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And when the work was finally done
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They gave our names to immigration
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I did not know how bad it hurt
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Until I lay there eating dirt
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And the cold seeped in between my bones
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That's where I was when I left home
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Searching for America
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All her dreams and hopes
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Searching for America
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Finding only ghosts
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Who are these people you have seen
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To dream this dark and distant dream
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To tell the stories you have told
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To leave these bruises on your soul
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They are the flesh, they are the bone
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They are the very cornerstone
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They leave their mansions and their shacks
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To hide here in-between the cracks
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Their hope is tattooed on my lips
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Bleeding from my fingertips
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They are crawling toward the promised land
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Hand over hand
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To walk until they run no more
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And wash up on some distant shore
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Where truth is not the enemy
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And whatever does not kill us, sets us free
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Somewhere out there
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Are millions just like me
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Homesick for Eden
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Heartsick at the memory
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Searching for America
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In every stick and stone
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Searching for America
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Going home
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Searching for America
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Going home
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SEARCHING FOR AMERICA
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| Janis Ian |
