What Made America Famous?

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
 Now they were the folks that made America famous
 Our local fire department stocked with short-haired 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 screen
 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 out, 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
 Crowded families of coal-black faces
 Cramped inside some cracked old boards
 The best that we all could afford
 But still too fine for the rich landlord to ever 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
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 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 that I was dreamin'
 Then I saw the first flames gleamin'
 And heard the sound of children screamin'
 Coming through the smoke
 And something's burning somewhere
 Does anybody care?
 Oh it was the fire that made America famous
 The sirens wailed and the firemen stumbled sleepy from their homes
 And when the plumber yelled: "Come on let's go!"
 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: "then I'm going alone"
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 Well, 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
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 I shook his hand in the scene that made America famous
 And a smile from the heart that made America great
 We spent the rest of that night in the home of this man
 That we'd never known before
 It's funny when you get that close, it's kind of hard to hate
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 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 the choice to make each man
 Who dares to dream, reaching out his hand
 A prophet or just a crazy, damn dreamer of a fool Yes a crazy fool
 And something burnin' somewhere
 Does anybody care?
 Is anybody there?
 Is anybody there?