What Made America Famous? - Harry Chapin

It was the town that made America famous.

The churches full and the kids all gone to hell.

Six traffic lights and seven cops and all the streets kept clean.

The supermarket and the drug store and the bars all doing well.

They were the folks that made America famous.

The local fire department stocked with shorthaired volunteers.

And on Saturday night while America boozes

The fire department showed dirty movies,

The lawyer and the grocer seeing their dreams

Come to life on the movie screens

While the plumber hopes that he won't be seen

As he tries to hide his fears and he wipes away his tears.

But something's burning somewhere. Does anybody care?

We were the kids that made America famous.

The kind of kids that long since drove our parents to dispair.

We were lazy long hairs dropping our, lost confused, and copping out.

Convinced our futures were in doubt and trying not to care.

We lived in the house that made America famous.

It was a rundown slum, the shame of all the decent folks in town.

We hippies and some welfare cases,

Croweded families of coal black faces,

Cramped inside some cracked old boards,

The best that we all could afford

But still to nice for the rich landlord

To tear it down and we could hear the sound

Of something burning somewhere. Is anybody there?

We all lived the life that made America famous.

Our cops would make a point to shadow us around our town.

And we love children put a swastika on the bright red firehouse door.

America, the beautiful, it makes a body proud.

And then came the night that made America famous.

Was it carelessness or someone's sick idea of a joke.

In the tinder box trap that we hippies lived in someone struck a spark.

At first I thought I was dreaming,

Then I saw the first flames gleaming

And heard the sound of children screaming

Coming through the smoke. That's when the horror broke.

Something's burning somewhere. Does anybody care?

It was the fire that made America famous.

The sirens wailed and the firemen stumbled sleepy from their homes.

And the plumber yelled: "Come on let's go!"

But they saw what was burning and said: "Take it slow,

Let'em sweat a little, they'll never know

And besides, we just cleaned the chrome." Said the plumber: "I'm going alone."

He rolled on up in the fire truck

And raised the ladder to the ledge

Where me and my girl and a couple of kids

Were clinging like bats to the edge.

We staggered to salvation,

Collapsed on the street.

And I never thought that a fat man's face

Would ever look so sweet.

I shook his hand in the scene that made America famous

And a smile from the heart that made America great

You see we spent the rest of that night in the home of a man I'd never known

before.

It's funny when you get that close it's kind of hard to hate.

I went to sleep with the hope that made America famous.

I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school.

Of the America that made America famous... and

Of the people who just might understand

That how together yes we can

Create a country better than

The one we have made of this land,

We have a choice to make each man

who dares to dream, reaching out his hand

A prophet or just a crazy God damn

Dreamer of a fool - yes a crazy fool

There's something burning somewhere.

Does anybody care?

Is anybody there?