Edit Your Hometown

An outcry To lost dreams and a sense of wonder To the streets that raised him Say "Goodbye" to the hope for the home he'd been holding Say "Goodbye" and "Be gone" and "Be great" To the friends who left when they still could For the ones who chose to stay to waste away unplaced Alone, and pray To get out To grow old To grow strong And leave this city, so familiar all it's places All these memories turn each day more to gray More they space out till it's once a year we'll catch up, maybe less Or else just daydreams while he's working late Thinks only of those friends and when they left "Are we still friends at all, my friends?" Can I leave? Rewind and find a younger man All hopes and goals and dreams alight and bright With friendship at the crossroads in the night "Now make a choice," the city said We were barely twenty then But while I swore it my allegiance They chose leaving, all my friends And now it's letters, maybe phone calls That come less and less each year All addressed with wives and children To the fool who chose to stay here And it hurts me to know I'm alone now And it's worse when I know that I chose it Don't make the same mistake as me Don't make the same mistake And now my friends have all left Or it's been me gone all along I guess we all part one day And drop like leaves into the breeze And ain't it wild? Ain't it bitter? Didn't it carry you from me? But it's the coping with my fear That keeps me here See, once it's gone Do I regret you? You can't retrieve it Can I forget you? I still believe I might get left here I might turn 63 still sweeping up the gutters in the street Or weeding concrete Wait and see, we'll wait and see Or, rather, I will Only me, only me Don't make the same mistake as me Don't make the same mistake Don't make the same mistake as me Say "Goodbye" and "Be gone" and "Be great" and be done and be free