Searching For America Lyrics

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

I caught a cinder in my eye

Searching for a patch of sky

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

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
Janis Ian - Searching For America - http://motolyrics.com/janis-ian/searching-for-america-lyrics.html
'Til every single root ran red

And when the work was finally done

They gave our names to immigration

I did not know how bad it hurt

Until I lay there eating dirt

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

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

Somewhere out there

Are millions just like me

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