Dan Bern - Lithuania lyrics

I'd like to be a good American and write an elegy to the automobile But no matter where it takes me I don't really feel any different I got one foot in the black and white two dimensional ghosts of Lithuania And the other foot in sunny California where the people are all friendly As they drive their Mercedes to the mini-malls and take a lunch Or network with you or drive past and k** you for no reason These are my ghosts: Uncle Emmanuel, Uncle Eli, Aunt Mia And my grandparents, Jenny and Tobias, none of whom I've ever met I saw some letters once that they wrote to my dad in Palestine in 1940 Not too long before they all were shot My only link to them is my dad, he knew them, he knew me, now he's gone too Sometimes I want to get next to them, sometimes I want to drive them all away Say, you're not my ghosts, I live in Sunny California, I drive a 1992 Red Chevrolet I drive fast, and I drive as far west as anyone can drive Eight thousand miles from Lithuania and if I could escape By driving further then I would, but it doesn't get me anyplace new I guess if I was a true American, I could write an elegy to the automobile But when I jump in it doesn't get me any place different Sometimes I want to dance on Hitler's grave And shout out, "Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce, Leonard Cohen, Philip Roth Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, Leonard Bernstein, Harry Houdini, Sandy Kofax" And then I want to sing as loud as I can Watch the chandeliers sway dangerously overhead Proclaiming Kristallnacht is over I say Kristallnacht is over The only broken gla** tonight Will be from wedding gla**es shattered under boot heels We're not the ones in the museum, it's you Your curious mustache and your chamber of horrors I've a friend my age whose parents met in Auschwitz on the Day of Liberation She lives in San Francisco, a good job, just moved into a new house I've a friend who lies in her hospital bed After fifteen operations from a botched appendectomy I go to visit her with a heart heavy from the things on my mind And she cheers me up I saw my dad tell jokes, teach me how to laugh Thirty years after his parents, brothers, and sister were all shot Murdered in the streets of Lithuania I see trees growing tall and the sun coming up, the ocean roaring home And know I must go on I must go on I must go on It would be cowardly to stop It would be an aberration to do anything else Amid something you tried to remember for days The fog is suddenly lifted The haze is gone from your mind And it's no so much that your memory finally heeded But you gave up needing to need it Hey, the fog has gone Hey, the fog has gone It's time for you to come out There's no longer a reason to die When something is over, something else begins The end of the century is coming Like a blind woman relentlessly spinning But before it's sewn shut You wanted to scream: Hold on just a minute, was this just a dream? Or is there something to learn Besides who got the gold And who's been losing and winning? But a century's a man-made process An attempt to stick order on chaos We're born with ten fingers So we count up to ten But if everyone counted the cracks on the wall We might all count to three and then it wouldn't be The end of the century at all Hey hey, the fog has gone Hey hey, the fog has gone It showed signs early today I knew when I woke in my bed That something was going on Throw up the window I want to scream out your name Hey hey, the fog has gone Hey hey, the fog has gone C'mon we'll drive up the coast Its a Tuesday or Thursday But I can't remember, and I don't care We'll drive to Seattle or else Oklahoma Or else if we wanna boat to Hawaii Or maybe Japan with the kings of karaoke Come out Come on out girl, you gotta come out now Maybe the only thing jumping in the car and driving can get us Is an empty tank of gas But it sure beats sitting around here Maybe we'll get lucky, find our own private river valley Or at least an all-night diner where they know how to poach an egg Maybe we'll meet some good people along the way And anyway, you know I'll never leave you I'll never leave you