I reach into my jacket
Pull the keys out of my pocket
And slide behind the wheel
A crystal silouhette
Of my breath is still hangin' there
Frozen in the air
Like the last look that you gave me
As we parted on the street
Now I'm sittin' in the front seat
In suspended disbelief
And I'm starin straight ahead
at that two lane Interstate
That leads to nowhere ...
What was it I was thinkin'
What could I have been thinkin'
as Im shakin' off the cold
studying my fingers
frozen on the wheel
and look off down the road
Like the last look that you gave me
As we parted on the street
Now I'm sittin' in the front seat
In suspended disbelief
And I'm starin straight ahead
at that two lane Interstate
My name is Harold Brown And I'm Detroit's native son I worked the day-shift on the line from sunup to sundown Building V8 twin carb Oldsmobiles Never had a drink on break Punched the clock there every day One day buy me a Ninety-Eight
I met up with this nice girl in Nineteen Fifty Three We moved from Southern Illinois to Detroit Once she married me Can't say why she did it For all my faulty lines For her I punched that clock So I could do more than rub together dimes
We set up house in a little place Over on Lorraine It wasn't much to look at But, to wife, three kids and me ... a mansion all the same All of my good fortune Was sittin' right there on that street Along with my new Motor City built and paid for Brand new Ninety-Eight
This plant that I been workin' at It worked through two World Wars And when I came home from Korea well it worked a little more To break me and to make me Into the man I need to be The Army never did do that GM did that to me
We raised three kids on Union wage Got 'em all through school They bought machines of their own And nice big houses too Ain't that the way it's supposed to be Seems like it is to me Tell 'em all up there in Congress It's what feeds the economy
So today I'm listenin' to the news On the TV in the home Detroit was up in Washington Askin' for a loan Those Senators told Detroit "You must atone for all your sins" They got taxpayers to protect But ain't I one of them?
So I guess the thing that you could say Is Detroit can go to hell Congress could be right on that You can't never tell But if the Motor City Goes off down that track It's likely gonna carry Congress out Right on its back
I guess it sounds fashionable these days To tell Detroit to go to hell Congress could be right on that Well, you can never tell But if the Motor City Is told to just pound sand You might as well start callin' us The United States of Japan
I'll bet somebody loves my Olds Ninety-Eight there in Japan ...
notes: An Apolitical tune ...
I live up in the rustbelt states ... and the Auto Industry is everybody's main lifeline ... so I wrote this song based on all the recent turmoil going on with Detroit, Congress, bailouts, and all that.
There are some factual inconsistencies in the song ... anybody who knows cars (Detroit steel that is ) knows that Oldsmobiles have never been built in Detroit ... they were built in Lansing before Olds' great demise. But somehow that just didn't help convey the song so .... I just changed it.
And Lorraine is a little street up in Lansing where my folks migrated to from Southern Illinois ... back in the 50's when people were moving North from Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee ... to work on the production lines in Detroit and Lansing.
And I guess this ain't even "auto-biographical" either ... written from the pov of my old man. We are on the third generation now of a family who's lives, fortunes ... and misfortunes ... have been made from the Detroit Auto Industry.
