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after some words from |
James McMurtry |
"We Can't Make It Here " |
There's a Viet Nam vet with a cardboard sign | ... |
Now I'm stocking shirts in a Wal-Mart store |
Sitting there by the left-turn line | Just like the ones we made before | |
Flag on his wheelchair flappin' in the breeze | Except this one came from Singapore -- | |
One leg missing and both hands free. | I guess we can't make it here anymore. | |
No one's paying much mind to him | ||
The VA's budget is just stretched too thin | Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin? | |
And now there's more coming back from the Mideast War. | Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in? | |
We can't make it here anymore. | Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today? | |
No -- I hate the men who sent the jobs away. | ||
And that big old building was a textile mill | I can see 'em all now; they haunt my dreams | |
It fed our kids and it paid our bills | All lily-white and squeaky-clean | |
But they turned us out and they closed the doors | They've never known want; they'll never know need. | |
We can't make it here anymore. | Their sh*t don't stink and their kids won't bleed. | |
Their kids won't bleed in their damn little war | ||
You see those pallets piled up on the loading dock? | And we can't make it here anymore. | |
They're just gonna sit there 'till they rot | ||
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack | We'll work for food; we'll die for oil | |
Just busted concrete and rusted track | We'll kill for power and to us the spoils: | |
Empty storefronts around the square | The billionaires get to pay less tax; | |
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere | The working poor get to fall through the cracks. | |
You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score | So let 'em eat jelly-beans; let 'em eat cake. |
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We can't make it here anymore. | Let 'em eat sh*t; whatever it takes. |
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They can join the Air Force or join the Corps | ||
And the bar's still open but man, it's slow | If they can't make it here anymore. | |
The tip jar's light and the register's low. | ||
The bartender don't have much to say. | So that's how it is; that's what we got | |
The regular crowd's getting thinner each day | If the President wants to admit it or not | |
Some have maxed out all their credit cards; | You can read it in the paper or read it on the wall | |
Some are working two jobs and living in cars | Or hear it on the wind if you're listening at all. | |
'Cause minimum wage won't pay for a roof | Get out of that limo and look us in the eye | |
Won't pay for a drink. If you gotta have proof, | Call us on the cell phone and tell us all why | |
Try it yourself, Mr. C.E.O. | In Dayton, Ohio or Portland, Maine | |
See how far five-fifteen an hour will go | Or a cotton gin out on the great High Plains | |
Take a part-time job in one of your stores | That's done closed down, along with the school | |
I bet you can't make it here anymore. | And the hospital and the swimming pool | |
And dust devils dance in the noonday heat | ||
There's a high school girl with a bourgois dream | And there's rats in the alley and trash in the street | |
Just like the pictures in the magazine | Gang grafitti on a box-car door | |
She found on the floor of the laundromat. | We can't make it here | |
A woman with kids can forget all that. | Anymore.... | |
If she comes up pregnant, what'll she do? | ||
Forget the career, forget about school | ||
Can she live on faith, live on hope? | ||
High on Jesus and hooked on dope | ||
When it's way too late to Just Say No | ||
You can't make it here anymore. |