Dan Bern | Ballerina

Shortly before Pittsburgh the tires came off
But we kept pouring down the interstate
Heading west and slightly north
And by the time we pulled into Cleveland
And skidded to a stop
It was noon and very cold
And we fell out of the van
Smelling smoke from the fenders
Which were twisted and scraped
And we were just in time
Just barely in time
For another interview

We just passed some factory
That makes a billion Eiffel Towers a day
And at the end of every day they melt ’em down
So they can do it again the next day
They’re been doing it since the 30’s
And someone in the Carter administration
Tried to get ’em to stop
But they said well, what if there’s a war
Imagine our advantage
If on a moment’s notice
We could drop a billion Eiffel Towers
On some unusupecting country
Like Thailand

And, oh, what a trip
What a journey
Tige plays bass all day
Jarrod just wants to sleep
Wil gets thinner every day
Tom’s in Vietnam
Martha makes love and coffee
Both of them quite strong
And I just wish I could make all of them happy

We started piling Walmarts on top of the van
We had sixteen Walmarts piled up like flatbeds
Till some cop said something’s wrong
And pulled us over for questioning

Every day I seem to fire
Three more poeple
And every time I do
Eleven more show up
I can’t fire ’em fast enough
If right now I fired every one I knew
I’d have 6 million employees by Christmas
Six million

And there’s structural damage
In the building where we’re staying
Some crack or some leak
And my dreams are telling me
Get out before the whole bloody thing comes down

We’ve abandoned eating health food
We’ve abandoned taking showers
We’ve abandoned changing clothes
In exchange for three Big Macs a day
And a card game that theoretically don’t end
For five million years

Our phone cards are dead
There’s crap on all the windows
We can’t get any word to the outside world
Our families have forgot we ever existed

And here I sit in my little paper room
And everything is fraught with deep, deep meaning
And sometimes I lie here and I think
Well, what if I never even get up?
What if I never move?
Would we keep going and going and going
And going and going and going
And going and going and going?

(lyrics: Dan Bern)