To Be American by Gabriel Kahane Lyrics

[Verse 1]
To be American again
Teenaged and certain of innocence
Six lanes of Western caravan
Burn fuel to speed up the renaissance

[Pre-Chorus]
Before the trench coats and the roped-off rooms
The shell-shocked mothers and the TV crews

[Chorus]
Foreclosing a grand, old dream
Black motorcade running on empty
Big box and a Ponzi scheme
Drain everything, land of the plenty

[Verse 2]
In high school, I sang in the choir
With all the Mormons from Rohnert Park
Now all their houses are on fire
Strangе glow of oxblood in the dark
[Pre-Chorus]
I think we all meant wеll, or so I thought
That season, privilege was a parking spot

[Chorus]
Foreclosing a grand, old dream
Black motorcade running on empty
Big box and a Ponzi scheme
Drain everything, land of the plenty

[Verse 3]
If Reconstruction and the War
Seemed distant back in eleventh grade
How quaint our simple lives before
Seem now in face of the coming days

[Chorus]
Foreclosing a grand, old dream
Black motorcade running on empty
Big box and a Ponzi scheme
Drain everything, land of the plenty

[Outro]
Our furniture's on the street
In every church, last rites are spoken
One criminal’s soft defeat
Can't change the fact that we're broken