About Freedom

I want to talk about freedom
 Because it's something I don't understand
 I've got this automobile, I've got the wide road
 I'm heading out to see the land
 I've got this gravel truck in the lane ahead
 Downshifting up a long climb
 And I'm thinking "yeah, that's heavy"
 I'm bouncing off the centerline
 I want to talk about freedom
 I want to talk about the open road
 But I've got to get past this gear-grinding
 Black smoke choking heavy load, oh
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 I want to talk about freedom
 Because I lost good love to it
 Love that felt like two gears meshed
 And moving forward interknit
 He said "I want my freedom back"
 And though I let him go, I knew
 I had never felt so free
 As when I thought the search for love was through
 I want to talk about freedom
 I want to talk about the open road
 But I've got to get past this gear-grinding
 Black smoke choking heavy load
 My grandfather lost his leg in the war
 It was something that I owed to him
 As though he himself had bought me my freedom
 By cashing in his limb
 It was too abstract for me
 Now he's old and his mind's adrift
 Free from time and space and purpose
 Seems like a kind of grace, a gift
 I want to talk about freedom
 I want to talk about the open road
 But I've got to get past this gear-grinding
 Black smoke choking heavy load, oh
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 Well I'm glad I've got this road to drive on
 I always like to think I'm free to go
 And I want to talk about freedom
 And what it cost to build this road
 And all of my time that I've traded away
 So I can buy into the machine
 That drives the gears that drive the world
 To keep pushing beyond its means
 I want to talk about freedom
 I want to talk about the open road
 But I've got to get past this gear-grinding
 Black smoke choking heavy load, oh
 I want to talk about freedom
 And the illusion of an open road
 And all of these cars and all these people
 Where we all came from and where it's all going to go