Searching for America

Where have you been that made you weep
 And left these stains upon your cheek
 What did you see while you were gone
 That haunts your eyes this sunny dawn
 They herded us like so much meat
 Up from the sewers to the street
 Where concrete canyons stretched their walls
 So high it made us want to crawl
 Past proverbs writ on subway cars
 And in-between the window bars
 We walked until the pavement bled
 And not a curse was left unsaid
 Into a place that knows no spring
 Where only steel and silver sing
 They made us dance until we dropped
 And the music of the jackhammers stopped
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 I caught a cinder in my eye
 Searching for a patch of sky
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 But the shadows drizzled down like in Pompeii
 That's how I spent my yesterday
 
 Searching for America
 In the rivets and the rust
 Searching for America
 
 Finding only dust
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 What did you see that made you cry
 And left these trackmarks on your eye
 What did you find while you were there
 That sucks the light out of the morning air
 They gave us each a cropper's shack
 And land so hard it broke our back
 Then fed us 'til our bellies burst
 On promises that died at birth
 So I lay the baby out each dawn
 In-between the tender corn
 With sunrise for her bonnet
 And flies her only blanket
 We harvested until we bled
 'Til every single root ran red
 And when the work was finally done
 They gave our names to immigration
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 I did not know how bad it hurt
 Until I lay there eating dirt
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 And the cold seeped in between my bones
 That's where I was when I left home
 Searching for America
 All her dreams and hopes
 Searching for America
 Finding only ghosts
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 Who are these people you have seen
 To dream this dark and distant dream
 To tell the stories you have told
 To leave these bruises on your soul
 They are the flesh, they are the bone
 They are the very cornerstone
 They leave their mansions and their shacks
 To hide here in-between the cracks
 Their hope is tattooed on my lips
 Bleeding from my fingertips
 They are crawling toward the promised land
 Hand over hand
 To walk until they run no more
 And wash up on some distant shore
 Where truth is not the enemy
 And whatever does not kill us, sets us free
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 Somewhere out there
 Are millions just like me
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 Homesick for Eden
 Heartsick at the memory
 
 Searching for America
 In every stick and stone
 Searching for America
 ♪
 Going home
 Searching for America
 ♪
 Going home