Children rummage through the decades, play telephone with half-truths stretched and rolled.
And clutching to the shreds of Laverne and Shirley costumes - that is how my garbage turns to gold.
Centuries in whispered trivia questions become the greatest story never told.
We couldn't even kill time - just scarred its face forever. And that is how my garbage turns to gold.

When history turns to nostalgia it is barely detectable.
My memory warped in a fun house mirror - now it's collectible.

We pay to look at pictures of actors dressed in wheelchairs.
They're fighting cause they're oh so principled.
It touches something in us. We leave it in the theater
and that is how my garbage turns to gold.

There goes your past. It isn't catching up, it's gone way ahead of you.
Your children wave, but they are greeting your reflection instead of you.
We offer no excuses for how we crippled nature.
It seemed just one more item to be sold.
But we can trust the future to make this look like heaven,
and that is how my garbage turns to gold. But I can't spend it - it turns to gold. Yes in the end it turns to gold.