What Made America Famous
Harry Chapin
Letra

It was the town that made America famous.
The churches full and the kids all gone to hell.
Six traffic lights and seven cops and all the streets kept clean.
The supermarket and the drug store and the bars all doing well.

They were the folks that made America famous.
The local fire department stocked with shorthaired volunteers.
And on Saturday night while America boozes
The fire department showed dirty movies,
The lawyer and the grocer seeing their dreams
Come to life on the movie screens
While the plumber hopes that he won't be seen
As he tries to hide his fears and he wipes away his tears.
But something's burning somewhere. Does anybody care?

We were the kids that made America famous.
The kind of kids that long since drove our parents to dispair.
We were lazy long hairs dropping our, lost confused, and copping out.
Convinced our futures were in doubt and trying not to care.

We lived in the house that made America famous.
It was a rundown slum, the shame of all the decent folks in town.
We hippies and some welfare cases,
Croweded families of coal black faces,
Cramped inside some cracked old boards,
The best that we all could afford
But still to nice for the rich landlord
To tear it down and we could hear the sound
Of something burning somewhere. Is anybody there?

We all lived the life that made America famous.
Our cops would make a point to shadow us around our town.
And we love children put a swastika on the bright red firehouse door.
America, the beautiful, it makes a body proud.

And then came the night that made America famous.
Was it carelessness or someone's sick idea of a joke.
In the tinder box trap that we hippies lived in someo