Testo Wasteland Dan Bern

Wasteland

I saw the best of my generation playing pinball
Make-up on, all caked up
Looking like some kind of china doll
With all of Adolf Hitler's moves down cold
As they stood up in front
Of a rock and roll band
And always moving upward and ever upward
To this gentle golden promised land
With the smartest of them all
Moonlighting as a word processor
And the strongest of them all
Checking IDs outside a saloon
And the prettiest of all
Taking off her clothes
In front of men
Whose eyes look like they were in some little hick town
Near Omaha
Watching the police chief
Run his car off the side of a bridge
I saw a men with dreams
Like the ones I'd had
Beg quarters outside the Seven-Eleven
Till it got so they didn't affect me anymore
Than the mailboxes I'd passed
'Cept that sometimes
I'd put somthing in the mailbox
I'd had the wind at my back
Now I felt it cold in my face
And for an awful long time now
You were the only one who ever
Called me late at night
And I really never noticed
Till after you stopped calling
And the emptiness
And silence
Got so heavy
Broken up in the wasteland
Broken up in the promised land
Broken up in Disneyland
Broken up in the plastic land
Broken up in the wasteland
Broken up in the wasteland
Broken up in the wasteland
I saw dead Marilyn Monroe
Strung up on every street corner in Hollywood
Like some two bit whore
Offering a discount rate
And I wondered how Joe Dimaggio felt
I saw dead James Dean's ghost
Wandering the sidewalk looking troubled
And I wondered how his mama felt
I saw signs that said