There's Gotta Be a Road – Lyrics Page 2

We spent the night with my cousins in Birmingham

One hot July years ago

House full of kids, all fun and excitement

But something lingered in the air

Back at our house, the tanks were rolling

Down the streets toward the billowing smoke

It was '67, the city was burning

We slept where we thought we'd be safe

My dad worked nights, but he'd come home early

'Cause the curfew was set at 8

Mom wasn't good at hiding her worries

Till she saw the car pull up in front

My sister and I couldn't quite understand it

But we knew that a riot was bad

It was '67 and the people were fighting

We just wanted to stay out of the way

Maybe it just had to happen

The lid just had to come off

The combination of heat and frustration

Injustice mixed up with fear

People could not pretend any more

When the fires lit up the sky

Too many gunshots, bricks through store windows

The headlines screaming the score

It went up with a bang, and faded more slowly

Finally the troops all left town

People started to put things back together

Even now some streets still aren't the same

Thirty years later it looks like it's better

At least we don't fight in the street

But ask folks living near old 12th and Myrtle

Have we really come far enough

Halfway across Iowa I missed you for the first time

Miles and miles of corn fields, without any trees to climb

The only thing I wanted was to hear a friendly voice

But a farm show on the radio was my only choice

And overnight in Omaha, a cafe after after dark

Then a bed and a TV set in a motel by the park

I played my songs to an empty room, chords bouncing off the wall

Then I watched Jay Leno, you know he never heard at all

About how it felt to miss you though I said I didn't care

And how you fill a hole in me that I didn't know was there

I thought that I could leave you, and though that may be true

I will never leave a place that I could miss as much as you

And rolling into Denver underneath the open sky

The Rockies building in the west, truckers roaring by

I pointed at an eagle, said "Hey would you look at that"

As if you were sitting there seeing what I pointed at

Halfway across Iowa I missed you for the first time

I'll be in California sometime Friday after nine

I guess I'll send a postcard from the next town I pass through

Though I know a card can't say what I need to say to you

(repeat 3rd verse)

I hate waking up in the morning

And that moment that I realize

That the place I'm on my way to

Pays the bills but it won't feed my soul

I hate feeling the feeling I get

When it's like my friends fence me in

But right now I'd like to have the chance

To have a happy reunion after a long time apart

Sometimes I think of my father

43 years in the same factory

He died just 30 miles from where he was born

I wonder if he ever felt like me

There's too many nights spent sleepless

And I think that a bottle would do me right

But I open the road map and follow the lines

My dreams come and they lead me away