Edit Your Hometown

An outcry

To lost dreams and 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 its 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