GBmCD
There's a part of the country could drop off tomorrow in an earthquake,
GBmCD
Yeah, it's out there on the cutting edge, the people move, the sidewalks shake.
EmBmCD
And there's another part of the country with a land that gently creaks and thuds,
EmBmCD
Where the heavy snows make faucets leak in bathrooms with free-standing tubs.
GBmCDEm
They're in houses that are haunted, the with kids who lie awake and think about
CDG
All the generations past who used to use that dripping sink.
EmBmCD
And sometimes one place wants to slip into the other just to see
EmBmCD
What it's like to trade its demons for the restless ghost of Mrs. Ogilvey,
GBmCD
She used to pick the mint from her front yard to dress the Sunday pork,
GDCG
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York.
GBmCD
It wants to have a family business in sheet metal or power tools,
GBmCD
It wants to have a diner where the coffee tastes like diesel fuel,
EmBmCD
And it wants to find the glory of a town they say has hit the skids,
EmBmCD
And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids,
GBmCDEm
And it's embarrassed, but it's lusting after a SUNY student with mousy brown hair who is
CDG
Taking out the compost, making coffee in long underwear.
EmBmCD
And southern California says to save a place, I'll meet you there,
EmBmCD
And it tried to pack up its Miata, all it could fit was a prayer,
GBmCD
Sometimes the stakes are bogus, sometimes the fast lane hits a fork,
GDCG
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York.
EmBmCD
Tempe, Arizona thinks the Everglades are greener and wetter,
EmBmCD
And Washington, D.C. thinks that Atlanta integrated better,
GBmCD
But I think that southern California has more pain that we can say,
GD11CG
'Cause it wants to travel back in time, but it just can't leave L.A.
GBmCD
But now I hear they've got a theme park planned, designed to make you gasp and say,
GBmCD
Oh, I bet that crumbling mill town was a booming mill town in its day,
EmBmCD
And the old investors scoff at this, but the young ones hope they'll take a chance,
EmBmCD
And they promise it will make more dough than Mickey Mouse in northern France,
GBmCDEm
And the planners planned an opening day, a town historian will host,
CDG
And the waitresses look like waitresses who want to leave for the west coast.
EmBmCD
And they'll have puttering on rainy weekends, autumn days that make you feel sad,
EmBmCD
They'll have hundred year old plumbing and the family you never had,
GBmCD
And a Niagara River clean-up concert and a bundle-bearing stork,
GD11CG
And I hear they've got a menu planned, it's trés western New York.