The Land They Made For Me

Long ago and far away,

In a land that time forgot,

Before the days of Dylan,

Or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents,

And they were you and me,

Long ago and far away

In The Land They Made For Me

For Ike was in the White House

In that land where we were born,

Where navels were for oranges,

And Peyton Place was porn.

We learned to gut a muffler,

We washed our hair at dawn,

We spread our crinolines to dry

In circles on the lawn.

We longed for love & romance,

And waited for our Prince,

And Eddie Fisher married Liz,

And no one's seen him since.

We danced to "Little Darlin",

And Sang to "Stagger Lee"

And cried for Buddy Holly

In The Land They Made For Me

Only girls wore earrings then,

And loafers held a penny,

And only boys wore flat-top cuts,

Except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams

Did we expect to see

A boy named George with Lipstick,

In The Land They Made For Me

We fell for Frankie Avalon,

Annette was oh, so nice,

And when they made a movie,

They never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five,

Or Psycho Two & Three,

Or Rockey-Rambo Twenty

In the Land That Made Me Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold,

And Chester had a limp,

And Reagan was a Movie Star

Whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr Wizard,

But not a Mr T,

And Oprah couldn't talk yet

In The Land They Made For Me

We had our share of heroes,

We never thought they'd go,

Especially Bobby Darin,

And Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal,

And life was yet to be,

And Elvis lives forever

In The Land They Made For Me

We'd never seen the rock band

That was Grateful to be Dead,

And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson ,

And Zeppelins were not Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then,

And Monkees lived in trees,

Madonna was a virgin

In The Land They Made For Me

We'd never heard of microwaves,

Or telephones in cars,

And babies might be bottle-fed,

But they weren't grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out,

And "gay" meant fancy-free,

And dorms were never coed

In The Land They Made For Me

We hadn't seen enough of jets

To talk about the lag,

And microchips were what was left

At the bottom of the bag.

And Hardware was a box of nails,

And bytes came from a flea,

And rocket ships were fiction

In the Land That Made Me Me.

Buick' s came with portholes,

And side shows came with freaks,

And bathing suits came big enough

To cover both your cheeks.

We had no Crest with Fluoride,

We had no Hill Street Blues,

We all wore superstructure bras

Designed by Howard Hughes.

We had no patterned pantyhose

Or Lipton herbal tea

Or prime-time ads for condoms

In The Land They Made For Me

There were no golden arches,

No Perrier to chill,

And fish were not called Wanda,

And cats were not called Bill.

Each sport had a season,

Or so we've heard them say,

Instead of endless playoffs

And zillion dollar pay

Politics were nasty then

Just as they are now

But votes ran the country

 Not who has the biggest cow

Loyalty was a way of life

And folks knew right from wrong

Fathers belt helped explain

'Till Dr. Spock came along.

But middle-aged was 35

And old was fifty-three,

And ancient were our parents

In The Land They Made For Me

Now they send us invitations

To join AARP,

We've come a long way, baby,

From The Land They Made For Me

So now we face a brave new world

In slightly larger jeans,

And wonder why they're using

Smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children

Of the way it used to be,

Long ago and far away

In The Land They Made For Me