Degeneration Gap

We're headin' toward degeneration
I see signs and little signals every day
There are beggars in the street
And the cop is off his feet
And the farmer's daughter's rollin' in the hay

I guess I can't do much to save it
It goes by so fast it makes me feel so slow
When I think I've found a way
Someone says it doesn't pay
Or they tell me there's too much that I don't know

I know our schools are overcrowded
And our welfare workers say they need more pay
But if ya left it up to me
I'd say my eyes can only see
And [my hands were held together] only pray

It makes me cry to read the papers
It confuses me to listen to the news
First they say there is a war
But they don't know what it's for
And they think for us to win would be to lose

Round up the posse
We're headin' for Degeneration Gap

This crazy world goes 'round in circles
Everybody wants to get around their strife
But they try to make believe
And wear a wristwatch on their sleeve
So they'll always have the time of their life

You call this life — I call it dyin'
When I got outside my cradle I found out
There's a purpose here somewhere
But it's hidden in the air
'long with sickness, soot and smog and smoke and drought

I keep my feelers out wide open
Now they're hurtin' but they also bring me joy
When I meet one of my own
And I fight outside his throne
Then I know there's something here that can destroy

They rape and plunder all our forests
Or they charge two bits to see a waterfall
As I watch them play the game
'til there's no one left to blame
When the winner tries to take what's left of all

Round up the posse
We're headin' for Degeneration Gap

This kind of story has no purpose
And the moral gets displaced within the cards
But the cause gets turned around
And trampled down and upside down
In the last stampede to tell it like it was

I'm not an auctioneer of history
And I really don't expect that it's for sale
Talk gets cheaper by the day
Just like givin' it away
Everyone has their own version why we failed

I fail to see the higher meaning
In a time when no one learns by their mistakes
It'll happen just the same
It's a self-defeating game
There's not much to give when everybody takes

What is there left when it's all over
If they find no *ever after" up above
They can look back and relate
That they practiced fear and hate
But they never took the time to check out — love

Oh, love, they say — a word that lost its meaning
In an avalanche of desperate advice
Only love will still remain
After eminent domain
After death and taxes, fire, flood and ice

It keeps the universe in balance
Makes the flowers grow from underneath cement
Love will make the crippled walk
Blind eyes see and mute lips talk
Though, they're right, it seldom ever pays the rent

They find it never can be measured
And I guess this irritates them all the more
'cause it can't be bought and sold
Can't be left in vaults to hold
Can't be put on lay-away at Monkey Wards

I started out to make a statement
Now I realize before it got too late
That it's useless to predict
Only so much mud will stick
On the wall that hides the freeway to their fate

Round up the posse
We're headin' for Regeneration Gap