The House I Live In

I'm just one of hundreds of millions of people who carry in our hearts
 A profound affection, respect, and lasting sense of loss for John FitzGerald Kennedy
 I dearly wish that I could find more ways to live those words of his
 "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country"
 But, whatever I try to give to my country it keeps giving right back to me
 Compounded every hour on the hour
 Only in America could all that's happened to me, happen to a guy like me
 Anywhere else I might have wound up digging coal
 Or herding sheep or stuffing fortune cookies
 All respectable enough jobs but I imagine, for me, a bit frustrating
 My country has let me sing for my supper and then payed me for the food I eat
 I've had my ups and downs, but who hasn't?
 But my low down downdest was certainly better than digging post holes
 For the iron or bare bull curtain, and you'd better believe me buster
 What is America to me?
 A name, a map, a flag I see
 A certain word, democracy
 What is America to me?
 The house I live in
 A plot of earth, a street
 The grocer and the butcher
 And the people that I meet
 The children in the playground
 The faces that I see
 All races and religions
 That's America to me
 A place I work in
 A worker by my side
 A little town or city
 Where my people lived and died
 The howdy and the handshake
 The air of feeling free
 And the right to speak my mind out
 That's America to me
 The things I see about me
 The big things and the small
 The little corner newsstand
 And the house a mile tall
 The wedding and the churchyard
 A laughter and the tears
 And the dream that's been a growing
 For a hundred and eighty years
 The town I live in
 The street, the house, the room
 Pavement of the city
 Or a garden all in bloom
 The church, the school, the clubhouse
 The millions lights I see
 But especially the people
 That's America to me