SUBURBILLY

I didn't learn my lessons in the back of a truck
Never had the good fortune of having bad luck
I can't sing the blues. I've never felt them really
I'm not from the hills. I'm a suburbilly

I wasn't born on the bayou
Not even a small town in Ohio
I grew up in a town where no one rents
A chain link mind needs a chain link fence
I've never been the porch swing sort
I grew up near an airport

I heard folks everywhere are the same
So once I tried moving to Maine
It felt like home to me but I was alone
There's no use being a weed among the homegrown

So I moved to a city where I could feel
A pulse of life that smacked of the real
But all the gals and all the fellers I met
were former suburban dwellers
Might as well have all stayed put and met our neighbors

Well you can be inert or you can take a chance
But you can't change your history 'less you do it in advance
My hometown bruised me like a banana
And there's no un-bruising fruit even in Montana

I wasn't born in a hollow
Nor partly raised in Colorado
I never learned to play the jug
I don't chew leaf and I don't chew plug
The sound of a frog on a water lily
gets drowned by the sound of a Hee-Haw billy

Well you can move to Chicago and meet people just like you
There'll be a new Chicago in a year or two
In a couple of years we'll be packing our bags for Boise
But Jersey hasn't left this boy since he left Jersey